


Thy Life Is A Riddle (To Live, Die, and Know)

by SecretEnigma



Series: Blood of My Blood verse [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Drama, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ballroom Dancing, Brother Feels, But He Gets Lots of Hugs?, But This Is Me Who's Surprised, Don't copy to another site, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Good Parent Regis Lucis Caelum, Implied/Referenced Torture, It's Magic Gore, Men Crying, Mild Gore, Noctis Has Trauma, Only In One Part of One Scene Tho, Song Lyrics Adapted For Dialogue, Thanks a Lot Ardyn, This Fic Has a Lot of Angst, Time Travel Fix-It, and almost dying, does that count?, does that help?, people jumping to conclusions, repercussions of Time Travel, there's a happy ending i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27908491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretEnigma/pseuds/SecretEnigma
Summary: Noctis has been home for roughly a year. He has reclaimed his Retinue and recovered his Heart. Tonight he turns eighteen, and as is tradition, there will be a party and then the Naming Rite where he gains the epithet he already knows he bears. The worst part of the night will be the socializing with nosy, gossiping nobility, but if he can get through that, everything will be smooth sailing....Right?The Lucii and the Crystal, however, have other ideas.
Relationships: Clarus Amicitia & Cor Leonis & Regis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia & Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia & Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia, Ifrit/Shiva (Final Fantasy XV), Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Original Male Character(s), Noctis Lucis Caelum & Regis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum
Series: Blood of My Blood verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882282
Comments: 80
Kudos: 361





	Thy Life Is A Riddle (To Live, Die, and Know)

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, not going to lie, I was tempted to rate this M? Just because some of the scenes get a little ... intense. But I don't THINK it's actually worth an M rating, so for now Teen this shall remain. But you have been warned.
> 
> Also! All of the OC Council members and their successors are not mine, they belong to the wonderful a-world-in-grey on Tumblr, who graciously allowed me to borrow them and their titles because the thought of making up an entire roster of politicians and their kids for just one or two scenes was giving me proverbial hives. I hope I did their personalities a modicum of justice, but I only had basic descriptions to work with. XD Thank you for letting me borrow them a-world-in-grey!

“You don’t have to treat this quite so glumly, you know.”

Noctis huffed, but didn’t fidget as Ignis gently adjusted the way his suit rested on his shoulders, “I’m not glum, I’m just…” annoyed, agitated, dreading the next several hours of his life, resentful, “bored. It’s going to be boring, and stressful.”

Ignis tutted, but his expression was fond as he pulled a comb out of armiger and began some last minute fussing on Noctis’s hair, “It will be fine. If it truly becomes too much, just tell one of us and we will leave, your father will understand. But **do** try to last at least through supper, it has been a long time and people are eager to see you again.”

“I’ve made appearances.”

“Only for a few minutes at a time and only from a certain distance. Many people are worried that you are badly injured or ill, despite what they have been told. This will put some of their fears to rest.” Noctis made a noise that conveyed just how little he cared about what the media or the gossiping nobles of Lucian high society thought and Ignis sighed. With one last tug of the comb, he stopped fussing over Noctis’s hair and stepped back with a slight, warm smile, “Do try to enjoy yourself a **little** bit, will you?”

“Yeah,” Gladiolus piped up from where he and Prompto stood by the door at —mostly— perfect attention so that their suits wouldn’t wrinkle and attract Ignis’s attention, “Lighten up a little, Noct. You only get turn eighteen **once** after all.” Noctis and Prompto exchanged long looks and then laughed, perhaps just a touch hysterically. Gladiolus and Ignis blinked, but thankfully let the reaction go. It wasn’t like either Noctis or Prompto could admit that they both remembered their own eighteenth birthdays already, even though in this timeline it hadn’t happened yet for Prompto and Noctis’s was tomorrow.

It had only been two months since Noctis had found Prompto again — **his** Prompto, the one who remembered the future-that-wasn’t and had asked to become his Heart again—, but sometimes it already felt like he’d never left. Like they’d never been separated. And Gladiolus and Ignis still didn’t remember —never would, as far as he could tell—, but after their initial surprise and confusion over Noctis’s sudden change of mind over making Prompto his Heart, they had welcomed the blond into their number wholeheartedly. His Retinue walked with him now, helped him and teased him and stood at his sides and it made the whole world brighter.

Most of the time anyway. He still had bad days —Prompto had bad days too now, though thankfully none of them were the drowning, suffocating fog of a Quiet Day— and he still had a temper toward strangers that he hadn’t had in the last timeline. He still had frustratingly little patience for things he didn’t deem necessary or fun or otherwise worthwhile, to the point it became a trial just to concentrate when forced to perform such a task.

Like going to his own eighteenth birthday party.

Not the proper one, the private, small affair that would be just between him and his trusted family and friends. That would take place tomorrow, with more presents than Noctis thought necessary and a cake that Dionysus had proudly insisted he helped make that afternoon —the frosting had been a very telling **mess** and Ignis looked like it physically pained him, but Dionysus was so happy to help that Noctis’s Hand hadn’t been able to say no—. That would be a good party, probably a relaxing one, even with Drautos there —they had slowly come to an equilibrium over the months since he’d returned, enough that he grudgingly trusted her with babysitting Dionysus for the formal ceremony to come that would require all his Retinue be present but sometimes his instincts still bristled—.

But now it was the evening of the twenty-ninth and time for the **formal** birthday celebration. A banquet and ball to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of the Crown Prince of Lucis on the morrow, attended by members of high society and a few authorized photographers who would have all their photos meticulously looked through afterward before being allowed to take them home and use them for the morning news articles. The party would only last until midnight, and it was seven now, but Noctis was already dreading every minute of it. Unless one counted his increased involvement in council meetings and other royal duties, he hadn’t made an appearance in either public or noble society since before his kidnapping. People were going to be opinionated, and nosy, and **pushy**. Then, after the stress of all that, Noctis would have to deal with the Coming of Age rite, though that at least had a hope of being simply boring rather than nerve-wracking.

A servant knocked on the door from the outside to let them know it was time, and Noctis breathed in slowly to settle his bristling nerves. He had to do this, and he had to play nice. He knew the Citadel’s PR department had been in a constant flurry trying to handle all the questions and gossip following his return, and his father had been very understanding —too understanding, some would argue— in letting him stay mostly out of the public eye. But the longer he avoided events like these, the more curious people would get and the more curious they got, the higher the chances someone would get wind of Dionysus. And his son didn’t deserve to be anywhere near this. Not for as long as Noctis could help otherwise.

So. Smile and nod and grit his teeth through his own formal eighteenth birthday party it was. Never mind that he had already done this once before —never mind that the first time he had actually enjoyed it somewhat, been able to filch some wine from it and get drunk with Prompto afterward like the reckless teenager he’d been—.

Noctis nodded to his Retinue, and they fell in step with him as he slipped out of the little sitting room meant for private discussions and headed down the hall toward the banquet hall Regis had chosen for tonight’s celebration. Ignis slipped into place at his right hand, and Prompto easily slotted into place on Noctis’s left while Gladiolus loomed just behind like a dutiful Shield. Prompto’s smile was easy and his eyes alert, showing no signs of the nerves that he probably should have had. He was physically only seventeen after all, and his status as Noctis’s Heart was not yet public knowledge. This was going to be his first appearance in that role, and people where going to **talk**. But Prompto remembered a future unwritten, and even if they had never had to suffer through a formal announcement of his addition to the Retinue —he had held off until after his Crownsguard training, which had happened too close to the roadtrip for there to have been any formal events or announcements—, he remembered surviving the Long Night and all it entailed. Compared to a ten year night filled with screaming daemons and the desperate remnants of humanity, a banquet hall of politicians and nobility probably felt like nothing.

Two servants opened the double doors for them, and an usher announced their arrival while Noctis paused at the top of the stairs, letting his arrival register to the politely milling crowd waiting for the banquet to be served. Silence settled, then rippled into murmurs of gossip and polite bows of greeting as everyone noticed his presence. Noctis was announced first, as Crown Prince, but he remained on the stairs, waiting for the usher to finish listing off Ignis’s, Gladiolus’s, and Prompto’s full names and titles. Gladiolus had several, being an Amicitia and nobility himself, and Ignis had one or two as a former ward of the Crown who’s parents had died in high ranking service to it. Prompto however only had his new rank as Heart of the Crown Prince’s Retinue, and Noctis could feel the attention latch onto it as cameras started flashing.

Noctis pretended to ignore them, kept his focus straight ahead as he slowly descended the stairs, but in reality he was focused on everyone and no one, constantly _looking-feeling-waiting_ for threats to spring out from the crowd even though he could sense Crownsguard and even a few Kingsglaive lurking in every available corner and shadow. His father met him at the bottom of the stairs with a proud —sympathetic— smile, Clarus behind and on his right and Cor lurking in the wings to the left. “Your Majesty.” Noctis murmured formally —because his dad was his dad, but here he was also the king, and in front of an audience he had to be respected as such—.

“Prince Noctis,” His father returned with a tilt of his head and a brush of _warm-welcoming-apologetic_ magic. Greetings exchanged, they both turned back to the crowd and began wading through it toward the seemingly endless banquet table. Now that Noctis was here, they would only wait a little while longer for last minute guests to arrive before starting the banquet. A few more nobles and socialites trickled in while Noctis stood near his father’s side and made small talk with the “concerned” —nosy, greedy— nobility that competed to be among those who talked to him “first”. As if that would win his favor more or less than any who came after them.

The initial rush was always the worst, Noctis remembered grimly, but thankfully it was short, as once the bell for the banquet rang, everyone was herded to their seats and —most of— the less tolerable people were herded away to seats too far away to bother him during his meal. As king, his father settled at the head of the long table in a magnificent chair that mimicked the throne. Noctis took his traditional place at Regis’s right hand while Clarus sat on his king’s left and Cor sat on Clarus’s left. All of Noctis’s Retinue were seated at his right hand in order of who he had claimed first —Ignis, Gladiolus, Prompto, at least that hadn’t changed in this rewritten timeline—. After that came the Council and their future successors, the Council seated on the same side of the table as Cor, the successors seated on the same side as Noctis —supposedly it was to help encourage camaraderie between the Crown Prince and his future council, but Noctis personally thought it was so the older folk didn’t have to put up with youthful nattering in their ears—. After them came nobles of old blood and high standing, always arranged with the elders on the left side of the table and their heirs on the right. Arrayed around smaller, circular tables near the far end of the main table were the new bloods, the socialites, the children of higher nobility too young to be seated at the main table, and the scant few reporters with their cameramen.

Noctis could feel people watching him with varying levels of discretion as the first course was brought out. Some of them did an admirable job of masking it behind conversation with the person seated next to them, while others —like Aedes Memini, the future Lord of Education a few seats to Noctis’s right— stared at him without even trying to hide it. The first course was brought out, something very light and small, which was good, because Noctis’s stomach wasn’t up to eating full, heavy portions yet and he was going to have to survive the traditional six course meal without getting sick or obviously ignoring his food. The soup was light and mild, and Noctis was grateful that his father had clearly taken his needs into account when having the chefs plan the dinner.

Everyone took the requisite number of spoonfuls to prove they were “eating” and then the conversation started up again. Mostly about politics, or current affairs in the high social circles, or congratulations on Noctis’s eighteenth birthday —even though technically that was tomorrow and not tonight—, “We are all very relieved at your safe return.” Lord Veteris —Lord of Foreign Affairs on his father’s council, a cautious man but not unwise— said, “We feared at one point that you would never be found.”

“It was a long road home,” Noctis replied neutrally, “but I am glad to be back.”

Lady Alere, the future successor to the seat of Lord of Health, interrupted with all the characteristic tactlessness of her family, “How has your health been since your return? You are recovering well?”

Ignis smoothly inserted himself into the conversation with a prim, “The Citadel doctors are the finest of the country, and they have deemed His Highness to be in fine health.” Lady Alere and her father, the current Lord of Health, both looked unsatisfied with the vague answer. They were both very dedicated to the medical field and he didn’t doubt that they, like everyone else, wanted to know the details of his health and recovery —if for far more sincere reasons than most—. But they could hardly press further without casting doubts on the doctors Lord Operis himself had approved for the Citadel, so for the moment they let it slide. Noctis didn’t bother to add any comments. No one here needed to know that the while doctors had declared his health to be “vastly improved” that hardly made him “fine”. He was still struggling to get back all his lost weight, he had far more scars than they would like, and Ignis was making it a personal crusade to slowly work Noctis’s appetite back up to full meals.

And none of that was touching on his mental health.

Lord Aedes leaned forward slightly to see around Noctis’s Retinue, “It must have been so difficult for you out there. All the monsters and daemons. How **did** you make it to the outpost Marshal Leonis found you in?”

Cor stiffened faintly, but Noctis just took another slow sip of his soup and said, “There was a lot of walking involved.”

“The citizens of Lucis refused to help you?” The question came from Lord Egestas of Finance. There was a very faint frown on the man’s face that Noctis suspected came more from the thought of someone of Noctis’s status being “denied” aid by those of a lesser class than out of concern —Noctis did not have a good view of Lord Egestas and he knew it, but he had been … not friends, but well-acquainted with his daughter Copia and she had **opinions** on her father—.

Noctis chose to take a sip of his drink rather than risk filling up too much on soup, “They were very helpful when I asked for it. But hitchhiking will only get you so far.”

There was a ripple across the table, a faltering in the conversations that others were pretending to have as they all registered their Crown Prince had just admitted to **hitchhiking**. Noctis wanted to laugh at their thinly veiled surprise and disdain, like accepting a ride from a stranger passing by was somehow demeaning. Dangerous, yeah sometimes, but demeaning? Hardly. Everyone fell on hard times at some point and most people out there were understanding of it. Instead of laughing, he nudged the topic of his own health and circumstances aside for the moment by addressing Lady Aequum, the Lord of Justice, “I have heard that there is a new case being brought before the high courts that has caught your personal attention. Markos versus Elpenor?”

Lady Aequum nodded, brisk and emphatic, and was more than happy to discuss some of the details. Not many, since talking about criminal cases was not generally considered “polite conversation”, but the woman had more than earned her title over the years with her passion for seeing justice done and it showed. The topics drifted again, thankfully steering away from him as the second course came and went.

They were on the third course when the topic finally came back to something Noctis personally cared about, “Prompto Argentum, wasn’t it?” Lady Speravi Veteris asked with a faint flick of her elaborate braids, “I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with the name Argentum. Is your father a … viscount?”

Prompto grinned at her and while on the surface it was another one of his sunshine smiles, Noctis could tell it was actually all teeth, “Oh no, my family aren’t nobility. I live in one of the middle class residential districts.”

Several nearby conversations stopped and Noctis felt his magic start to bristle at the brief look of disdain that crossed Lord Egestas’s face. His daughter, Lady Copia, seemed to catch the look too, because she immediately leaned forward with a too-sharp smile, “Truly? How interesting. This must all seem rather extravagant to you then.”

Prompto’s actually seemed to perk up at addressing Lady Copia, something _old-remembering-grudgingly-fond_ flickering in his eyes and Noctis wondered if Lady Copia had survived at least part of the Long Night and gotten to know Prompto, “A little bit, yeah. Mostly just the cutlery through, Ignis has been teaching me all about events like this, but I’m still not sold on the necessity of six forks just for one meal.”

Several of the younger members at the table smothered laughter, and Noctis saw Cor hide a smile behind his wine glass. Lord Aedes spoke up again, “How did you meet His Highness?”

Prompto shrugged, easy and seemingly totally relaxed, “I got lost while on a tour of the Citadel. I ran into Prince Noctis while I was trying to find my way back and we hit it off.”

“Just like that? And you went on to become the Heart of his Retinue?” Noctis suppressed a growl at the incredulity of Lord Fictus Patriori, the future Lord of Housing.

Prompto kept his smile in place as the third course was finally taken away and the fourth brought out —only two more after this to go, Noctis could do this … maybe—, “Kinda!”

“How … expedient.” Lord Egestas commented with a fake smile, and Noctis had take a deep breath and squeeze Ignis’s hand under the table to keep from launching himself at the man —how dare he look down on Prompto **how dare he** think he was better than **Noctis’s Heart** —.

Regis looked up and away from the conversation he’d been having with Clarus and Lord Colere —his Lord of Agriculture, a patient but deeply stubborn man, good at his job and not caring of much else—. His father’s magic settled over his shoulders like a loose blanket of _calm-calm-it’s-alright_ and his voice held a slight edge as he addressed Lord Egestas even though he was smiling, “Prompto has been most capable and taken his new duties to my son very seriously. I have spoken with him several times, his perspectives are rather refreshing.”

Lord Egestas wisely backed down with a rote murmur of agreement, then let himself be drawn into a conversation with his peers rather than with the younger generation. Lady Copia, in a move that might have been fueled by genuine interest or might have been fueled purely by spite toward her father, struck up conversation with Prompto, eventually drawing Lady Speravi, Gladiolus, and the younger Lord Mons Ferum into their lively debate as well. Noctis felt the coil of magic in his bones relax at Prompto’s continued calm and the feel of Ignis gently rubbing his thumb along the back of Noctis’s hand.

Noctis picked his way through the fourth course, pretending to be engaged in listening to his friends’ discussion with the Council successors, but really just trying to talk his stomach into not folding in on itself yet. He’d managed to take **maybe** three bites out of this course, even though it was good, and he was already dreading the fifth and sixth. The fifth course was the **main** one after all. People would definitely notice if he didn’t eat that one. Ignis gave Noctis a concerned glance, then leaned over to murmur in his ear in a tone too low for the others to hear, “Are you alright?”

Noctis tilted his head to hide the movement of his lips, pretending to be engaged in some private comment on the current table topic rather than pushing down his desire to go curl up in a corner somewhere and digest what he’d already eaten in peace, “Please tell me the main course is soon. And is something light.”

Ignis’s lips pinched faintly, “Noct… If you need me to-.”

Noctis shook his head faintly and made himself take a sip of his drink, “I can do this. I need to do this.” He had to put up a strong front. There were a lot of gossips here tonight, there was **media** here. If he showed weakness of any kind, it would be blown out of proportion and the gossip rags all over Insomnia and Lucis would be breathlessly reporting that he was terminally ill or something by the end of the week.

Ignis reluctantly settled down, but his expression remained slightly pinched as the fourth course was **finally** taken away and the main course put down before them. Noctis worked his way through at least half of it before desperately pretending to be too busy talking to Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto to remember to eat. By this point, some attention had tapered off in favor of their own meals and conversations, so he was fairly confident he got away with it. For the most part. Lord Operis and his daughter were definitely giving him a considering side eye from their respective seats at the table —but they were both doctors as well as politicians, if anyone would notice, it **would** be them—. Lady Speravi seemed to notice too, but she just flashed him a smile when he caught her looking and went back to talking to Lady Copia.

Noctis stared down at the sixth course, the final one, and knew in a flash of despair that no matter how lovely it looked, if he tried to put a single bite of it in his mouth he was going to throw up. But he’d always had a fondness for deserts before his “disappearance”. People would notice if he didn’t eat it. So he had to. For appearances he **had to** -.

He caught the barest flicker of movement from Ignis under the table, then a second later Prompto was perking up and leaning smoothly around Gladiolus, “Hey man, remember that promise you made last week? When we beat that boss?”

Noctis didn’t let himself freeze or look confused, even though he did **not** remember any such promise, because they hadn’t beaten any bosses last week. They’d been too busy preparing for this event and discussing plans and soothing Noctis’s lingering, massive amounts of paranoia over leaving Dionysus in the care of Drautos for the evening —he was working through his issues with her, he was, he **had** , or else he wouldn’t have let her within a thousand yards of Dyn, but even so—. Still, he played along with whatever it was Prompto was doing, “Yeah.”

Prompto grinned and made a grabby gesture toward Noctis’s desert, not reacting to the disapproving looks and whispers occurring around him at the breach in banquet etiquette, “Time to pay up, Your Highness.”

… **Oh**.

_Bless my Retinue,_ Noctis thought as he faked a scowl and passed the dish to Ignis, who obligingly passed it to Gladiolus, who pretended to keep it for a moment before giving to Prompto while Noctis complained, “Come on man, this is one of my favorites.”

“You promised, and I’m collecting,” Prompto cackled softly as he smoothly transferred the slice of cake onto the same plate as his original slice and nudged them together to look like one bigger slice, “Fair’s fair!”

“You’re gonna get make yourself sick if you eat all that,” Gladiolus grunted in amusement, playing along with the easy dynamic and refusing to acknowledge the skeptical looks.

Prompto just laughed and attacked the cake slices with his fork, “Maybe. But **what a way to go**.”

“Yeah, pity **I’m** not going that way,” Noctis griped while failing to fight down a smile, “because, you know, someone just **stole my cake** from me. On my **birthday**.”

Prompto waved the fork —which was not the right fork to use on cake and Noctis was certain Prompto know that, he was playing up the uncultured middle class civvie stereotype—, swallowed the bite of cake he’d just had, and sniffed, “You’re a **prince**. You can order an entire cake for yourself from the kitchens whenever you want or whatever.”

“Boys,” Regis spoke up in bemusement from the head of the table, his kingly mask cracking for just a moment to reveal the father beneath, “is everything alright?”

Noctis waved off the concern, then shooed the servant who tentatively offered to bring him a new slice, “We’re fine. Prompto’s just being Prompto.” _Wonderful and amazing and a lifesaver._ Though Noctis was certain Ignis had signaled Prompto somehow to pull that stunt. Prompto had just gained a lot of dismissive opinions and hidden scorn from certain members of the observing nobility, he was certain. But that didn’t matter to Prompto. What had mattered was that Noctis needed a way out without getting sick or losing face, and Prompto had given it to him. Even though this was ultimately nothing important in the grand scheme of things. It was just a birthday party he had already gone through once before.

He really didn’t deserve his Retinue.

With the desert safely disposed of, all Noctis had to do was wait for everyone else to “finish” and the dishes to be cleared away. Regis stood up first in a signal and, like an obedient wave, so did everyone else. On the unspoken signal, the servants opened the three sets of massive double doors on the left side of the banquet hall, letting people pass through them into the sprawling ballroom. It was one of his father’s favorite ballrooms, with a dais for the king and his Retinue to sit and observe on one end and an alcove for the orchestra to play in peace nearby. On the other side, the wall had been removed entirely to attach to a large, open air balcony that couples could retreat to and talk without getting in the way of the dancers. Plush chairs and loveseats lined one of the other walls for the elderly or the tired to rest on, and servants were already lingering in the wings with small trays of champagne that Noctis wasn’t physically old enough to have yet.

Regis hadn’t danced since Aulea died and Juno was at home taking care of Iris that night, so no one was surprised when he and Clarus immediately moved to the dais. Cor stayed on the floor —unwillingly, but **someone** in the King’s Retinue had to socialize and also keep track of security—, but since the king would not open the dancing, all eyes turned to Noctis and his Retinue. Noctis glanced out over the guests, knowing that he had to pick the partner of his first dance and also knowing it would be making a statement to all the gossips. Cameras were already flashing in the corner of his vision and he reluctantly leaned on memories not his own to stay calm —there had been a hundred thousand parties just like this, a hundred thousand more that had used dances now out of style and forgotten for centuries, this was nothing special—.

Finally, Noctis stepped forward and held out a hand Lady Alere Operis —she was one of the successors of the council, which made her a safe choice gossip-wise, but also a decent **person** , which made her safer personal space-wise—, “Would the lady honor me with the first dance?”

Lady Alere tilted her head and curtseyed in response, then rested a dark-skinned hand in his much paler one, “I would be honored, Your Highness.”

The two of them walked out onto the dance floor and the orchestra started up a relatively slow, easy waltz. Tension broken, other dancers began partnering up by either interest, marriage, or alliance and following them out onto the floor. They danced in silence for the first few turns, then Lady Alere murmured, “How are you doing, **really** , Your Highness?” Her dark eyes looked earnest, concerned. It took a moment to remember that she was already a doctor, despite only being twenty-three. She didn’t work in the Citadel, yet, but he had no doubts she would as soon as she had fulfilled the requirements to be recommended there.

Noctis thought over his response as he gently spun her, then sighed and murmured back neutrally, “Better than I was doing two years ago.” Her forehead creased in a frown and there was a defiant spark there for a moment, like she wanted to insist he tell her more clearly, but Noctis cut her off with a calm, “My doctors had no concerns over my attending my own birthday party, if that’s what you’re asking.”

His therapist, his Retinue, his father, Clarus, Cor, and even Drautos on the other hand, had all had **multiple** concerns. Most of them focused on how he would handle the dinner and then handle the dancing. Because dancing meant people and **crowds** and strangers being nosy and in his personal space and Noctis had already broken several bones among the Crownsguard for less —and personally apologized afterward, but still—. But with Dionysus safely stashed away under the watchful eye of someone Noctis … mostly … trusted —should trust, wanted to trust, but trusting was so hard when he still carried memories of his father’s death from another timeline—, it was easier to stomp on the urge to lash out at the people weaving in and out of his peripheral vision.

She pursed her lips, but then let it go and instead asked, “How does it feel, to be back? I imagine it takes some getting used to again.”

“There was an adjustment period,” he admitted, “but what about you? You recently started your residency didn’t you?”

“At Constantine Medical Center.” She agreed with a faint smile, “It’s exhausting, but I knew what I was getting into. I don’t have a shift tomorrow, thankfully, so I don’t have to worry about staying up till midnight tonight.”

“Fortunate.” The silence returned after that, comfortable, if distant, and Noctis was glad he’d chosen her as his first dance as the waltz wrapped up and he escorted her off the floor. He passed her over to her father, who nodded to him with a sharp, assessing gaze that Noctis suspected was more over his hidden health issues than anything more nefarious.

After that, Noctis had to deal with the **rest** of the crowd. While Ignis and Gladiolus both drifted back to his side as much as possible, they also had titles and it was expected for the Retinue to dance as well as their prince, and Gladiolus was a natural flirt who **liked** these kinds of things. But Noctis didn’t fail to notice that Gladiolus’s flirting was focused tonight, gently cutting off and luring away women that were too loud or gestured too fast before they could get close enough to Noctis to make him anxious, and he hoped his Shield could feel how grateful he was. Ignis smoothly inserted himself into conversations with nearby nobility, letting Noctis drift in his shadow in silence, sometimes for whole minutes before someone inevitably approached to talk, or introduce their —very eligible, hopeful, and dressed up— daughters to him in hopes he would invite them to dance. He chose a handful purely because it was required, leaning on his memories both of the old timeline and of other lifetimes to determine which ladies were least likely to be … pushy.

A surprisingly delightful partner was Lady Acacallis, the thirty year old head of the Acacallis family. She was married and had already danced at least five dances with her husband, but when he had slipped over and asked for a dance purely to get away from the **very** heavily perfumed and pushy Lady Lobelia, she had obliged. They had spent the foxtrot talking about life in outer Lucis, and Noctis had been surprised by the revelation that Lady Acacallis had spent three years living out there as a Hunter. It was apparently a family tradition, to live three years working some kind of job in outer Lucis to remember their roots. They had originally been a refugee family from Niflheim two hundred years ago that had managed to get rich enough to enter high Lucian society only eighty years previous. They had a good time debating the best weapon to hunt Garula with and shared a groan over the persistence of Voretooths —he would have to keep an eye on that family, if they were anything like their head lady, they would be a delightful breath of fresh air in the court—.

But Lady Acacallis aside, most of his dances were stiff and spent trying to avoid overly enthusiastic parents hoping to spark the Crown Prince’s interest in their daughter, the enthusiastic daughters themselves, enthusiastic young men trying to draw the Crown Prince’s eye as a potential last member for his Retinue —as if he would ever choose any of these pampered children for the position of Sword, he’d never had one in the old timeline and he certainly wasn’t looking for one **here** —, or enthusiastic widows who were **far** too old to be as flirtatious around an eighteen year old as they were.

By the time the clock struck ten, all of the perfume in the air, talking, and movement in his peripheral was giving him a headache. Prompto stayed by his side as much as possible, easily claiming attention with the novelty of his middle class presence and his sunshine smile, and he managed to buy Noctis a few minutes of relative peace and quiet out on the balcony where the fresh air helped dull the edge of all the conflicting perfumes. He leaned his back against the balcony rail, watching the ballroom and the people inside —he didn’t trust enough to put his back to them if he could help it, would rather risk a sniper in the distance than a knife in his ribs—.

Ignis was somewhere deeper in the ballroom, holding a serious debate with one of the newer earls, and Gladiolus was on the dance floor again, easily claiming admiring stares and sighs of jealousy from the other eligible women who were not currently dancing a rather slow tango with the smirking Shield. He caught a glimpse of Cor off in the wings, talking softly with one of the Kingsglaive who had been added to the security detail, but the line of his shoulders were still relaxed, so it was probably just a check in. Prompto had actually landed a tango with Lady Copia, and the sheer chaotic energy they managed to give off even while dancing a perfect tango was palpable to him. He wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to contemplate why his Heart got along with **Copia Egestas**. True, she was highly intelligent, sharp as a knife, and not nearly as snobbish as her father —probably **because** her father was such a traditionalist snob—, but she was also made up of eighty percent spite by volume —very few people would go out of their way to have a child out of wedlock and then refuse to identify the other parent **expressly** because they had been told not to by their father— and not afraid to tear down her opposition to get to her goals. Not at all like Prompto, who was easily intelligent enough to keep up, but didn’t have such a vicious, spiteful edge.

Still. If Prompto managed to get on Lady Copia’s good side, that could very well be useful in the future, so who was Noctis to interfere with a little alliance building.

There was a flicker of movement on his right, liquid smooth and deliberately slow like a stalking predator and Noctis felt his magic surge up to rest just below his skin on instinct even as he politely turned his head to look at the newcomer. He froze, caught between an intense sense of deja vu and confusion, because he could have sworn he’d never seen this woman before, yet she felt familiar as she glided over to stand on the edge of his personal space.

She was very dark-skinned, her black hair done up in elaborate braids that were dotted with beads that looked they might be actual pearls. Her dress was sleeveless, showing off powerful shoulders and arms and a neck draped in a plated silver choker that was layered like an hundred thousand tiny scales. A glance down at her dress, more to check for hidden weapons than anything, and he almost had to catch his breath from the intricacy of it. The bodice was embroidered with silver-blue thread to looks like scales, similar to her necklace, and the threads stood out stark against the blue that was almost storm grey in its shade. The grey-blue grew brighter the further down the dress he looked until it was a vibrant shade like the waves beneath a summer sun, and the whole thing draped and flowed around her legs and ankles in a way that reminded him of water.

The dress alone had to have cost a fortune, and those heels looked sharp enough to skewer someone, but he didn’t really care about that. What he cared about was the persistent sense of danger and power she projected, and that he couldn’t recognize her at all yet felt so sure they had met before. He looked back up at her face, at her **eyes** , and stopped breathing. Lips painted a blue that complemented her dress tilted upward in a thin, closed smile, “Would His Highness,” she rumbled in a low alto that brushed against his ears like the hush of the tides, “humor me with a dance?” Humor. Not honor. Because an honor would imply he had some sort of status equal to or greater than hers. Humor was mocking, like she had every right to force him but was giving him the courtesy of choice out of amusement.

Every sense prickling, caught in disbelief and wariness and interest, Noctis tipped his chin and accepted her outstretched hand, careful of the silver-blue nails that were short, but decidedly sharp looking. They drifted onto the dance floor just as a rumba started, and Noctis choked back an incredulous laugh as she slid smoothly into the motions, every step and sway entrancing in the way only apex predators could achieve, “I didn’t think you would bother knowing human dances,” he finally managed to murmur as she spun into his arms. This close to her, when he breathed, he could taste the tang of waves and brewing ocean storms.

She spun out to arm’s length again, every gesture smooth and powerful, and eyes that shifted through the shades of blue and grey like all the seasons of the ocean glittered with amusement. She smiled, and in the second her lips parted for the expression, he saw teeth that were needle sharp and hungry, “Just because I do not care for humankind does not mean I do not pay attention. Your pithy customs are not hard to learn from observation.”

They swayed and prowled across the dance floor, Noctis’s magic instinctively rising to tangle passively with the deep, thrumming push and pull of hers to keep it from pulling him under just by proxy, “And why does the TideMother deign shed her scales and walk among mortal men this night, if I am so bold as to ask?”

They pressed close, and he tasted the ocean again as she watched him through half lidded eyes, **“Curiosity.”** She rumbled, deep and ancient as the tides, hungry as the crushing depths and gentle as the light playing over the coral reefs. A flicker of surprisingly mild annoyance that rippled more in her magic than her expression and a sour glance of ever-shifting eyes to one side of the ballroom as her voice lightened to something vaguely human again, “Besides. The Fulgarian **insisted** , and I decided to indulge him this once.”

**_Fulgarian_** _?_ Noctis looked over in the direction of her glance as they spun, and he caught sight of an elderly man with an elaborately braided beard watching the proceedings from one of the benches, surrounded by what few children remained who had not been taken home yet. The man sensed his gaze from across the room, glanced up, and for a moment his dark eyes flared a deep, electric violet. The elderly man —the **StormFather** — smiled beneath his beard, raised a hand to his lips, and then tilted his head meaningfully first to a far corner, then to another part of the dance floor and Noctis choked on his spit.

Lurking in the far corner, watching over everything with a vague aura of confusion and disdain, stood a man with black hair down to his chin and eyes that were a faintly glowing silver, like polished steel. He wore no armor, but his shoulders were broad and squared in the unmistakable stance of a knight at rest, and in the moments before his eyes fully reopened from a blink, Noctis caught a glimpse of wings made of a thousand swords in the man’s shadow. Not far away from the StormFather’s seat, a Behemoth of a man with dark skin and golden tattoos curling along his bald head also sat, watching the proceedings with an absentminded sort of interest, like a man who did not understand what he was seeing, but thought it pretty enough anyway.

A few turns around the dance floor, only barely remembering to continue his dance with Leviathan, and he spotted another couple twisting and prowling around each other with a chemistry that entranced. The woman’s hair was a white-blond like sunlight on snow, her dress done up in icy blues and swirling embroideries of black, and when her dark-skinned, red-haired dance partner glanced up and met Noctis’s gaze, the eyes looking back at Noctis were a gleaming, vivid blue. Like a cloudless sky in the height of summer, or even like Noctis’s own armiger in the light of midday. Noctis stumbled half a step, then recovered, but internally he was screaming.

Because **all six** of the Astrals were attending his eighteenth birthday party and **how had he** **missed that until now**?

“Blame not your own senses,” Leviathan hummed in definite amusement, “the Chosen did not know to look for us, and we do not wish to be particularly noticed by mortal eyes this night.”

Noctis glanced around again, realized that while people were maneuvering around the pair on the dance floor and children were listening to Ramuh on his chair, for the most part, the other party-goers flowed around the Astrals like they were mere furniture. Their eyes glancing over them and then dismissing the strangers in their midst even though they were hardly dressed to be subdued or missable. Now that he was aware of them, he could sense their magic, passively curling around them like cloaks, whispering of _normal-calm-pay-no-mind_ that made his eyes want to skitter away until he pulled on his own magic to shield him from the subtle command.

He refocused on Leviathan and hissed, “Were you here **last** time around?”

Leviathan was taking far too much glee in his incredulity, “Only the Glacian. The Draconian could not be bothered to stir from his realm and the rest of us still slumbered.”

“Great,” Noctis wheezed softly, “I feel so much better.”

The Hydraean in human skin laughed at him, low and soft but dangerous, then tilted her head and glanced around at the activity around them even as they still perfectly danced, “I have never been to one of these before. They are boring and strange. The most exciting things were when one or two humans challenged another to a duel, but they have yet to actually fight. Will that be part of the festivities on the morrow?”

Noctis swallowed back his incredulity as much as he could to answer, “Most of those duels aren’t serious challenges. It’s just old posturing and tradition. Most of those families have been competing for years, whenever fancy events like this happen they tend to get over competitive. Unless anyone’s virginity has been called into question, then nothing is actually going to happen.”

Leviathan’s expression soured, “How dull. What is the point to these without a little blood sport?”

“Socializing mostly. Making new alliances, shoring up old ones, working out petty feuds by flaunting wealth. Arranging marriages…” His voice trailed off at the look on the Hydraean’s face. She looked torn between utter disdain and morbid fascination at the sheer mundanity of it all. Noctis chuckled despite himself, “Yeah. It’s pretty boring and annoying.”

“Then why do you tolerate it?”

“Because it’s expected. I’m the Crown Prince. I have to show up to these things or people will think something is wrong with me.”

Leviathan raised her head and seemed to briefly reassess the room, “And if they sense weakness, they will come hunting.”

“Something like that.”

The dance came to a stop and Noctis led Leviathan off the dance floor — **was** led, really, but for appearance’s sake he pretended to be the one leading— and back to the balcony. The Fulgarian saw them go and smiled at them under his beard before refocusing on the children scattered around his feet, while the Draconian just dipped his chin in a curt greeting and … honestly it looked like the Archaean might have fallen asleep with his eyes open. That or he was reaching some kind of strange zen state watching the colorful dancers spinning across the floor with an unfocused gaze. Leviathan finally let go of Noctis’s hand as they reached the railing of the balcony, picked idly at the stone railing with a claw-like fingernail while Noctis cautiously propped a hip against the rail and watched the nightlife of Insomnia. It wasn’t like anyone was going to successfully try something when Leviathan was **right there**. She might be crabby and disdainful of humans at the best of times, but she had a covenant with him and her pride would never allow him to be stabbed in the back while she was near enough to prevent it.

Noctis breathed and tried to fight down the well of unease in his chest. Because the Astrals did not leave their realms lightly. They especially did not assume human form just for the entertainment value. Something was going on. Something was **happening** or **would** happen and Noctis didn’t like being left in the dark over whatever it was that was monumental enough to gain the attention of all six Astrals —that was monumental enough that Bahamut and Ifrit were coexisting in the same room without fighting, even if they were on opposite sides of it—. Leviathan seemed to have no interest in answering his questions, so when she abruptly huffed and disappeared to go hide in Bahamut’s corner of the room, he wasn’t surprised.

He also wasn’t surprised that in the moments Leviathan left, Shiva and Ifrit both slipped up into the gap. Noctis and the Infernian sized each other up for a long moment, “You’re not planning to set anything on fire are you?” Noctis asked at last, “Because I’m not physically old enough to drink, so I’m definitely not drunk enough to deal with an astral setting the ballroom on fire.”

Ifrit’s blank expression cracked into a sharp, dryly amused smile, “As tempting as it would be to indulge in a little arson at such a boring event, I **do** know how to behave. Worry not, Chosen. I will set no fires tonight unless you request them.”

“Thank you.”

Shiva glided forward. She wasn’t in her Gentiana guise, but rather looked like someone altogether different and entrancing. She had white-blond hair and icy blue eyes, and her necklace was an King Behemoth carved of polished bone ivory with glimmering aquamarine gemstones for eyes and claws and teeth. There was a matching bone ivory necklace on Ifrit’s neck, but instead of a King Behemoth it was a beautiful phoenix with eyes and spiraling Infernian horns made of rubies. Shiva reached out and cupped a cold, white hand against Noctis’s cheek, oddly motherly as she smiled, “May this anniversary bring you joy, Beloved Chosen. For surely it is a blessed one.”

Noctis didn’t pull away from the touch, but he did narrow his eyes, “Why though? I’ve been … here … for four years now. Why is this birthday special? Forgive the rudeness, but why are all of you **here**?”

Ifrit was the one who answered, watching the crowd with bored, sky colored eyes, “Because this is a special night. Your soul is old, but your body has only reached it’s eighteenth year. The coming of age is upon us. The circle will be completed.”

Noctis stiffened, “What circle.”

Neither Astral answered and Noctis hissed with a barely restrained pulse of magic, “ **What. Circle**.”

The pair exchanged glances and Noctis froze in confusion when Shiva reached up and pressed a cold kiss to his forehead, oddly reminding him of a mother trying to soothe the fears of her child, **“Do not fear, O Beloved of the Star.”** She murmured in her full voice, her Astral voice that rippled with the tongue of stars and ages gone, **“Whatever comes is merely what must be, this night of all nights and dawn of all dawns.”**

The Infernian pressed closer to him and ran a slow, summer-hot hand through the stunned Noctis’s hair, something gruffly reassuring thrumming from his slumbering inferno of magic to Noctis’s, **“You have walked tall this far, Young King.”** Ifrit growled in a voice that sounded like the hiss of molten lava and the deep snap of burning logs, **“You can walk just a little farther. Have faith and trust. The Father will not abandon his son to the cold stone.”** The pair stepped back, and before Noctis could recover his breath, they were gone. Completely gone. A frantic glance around the ballroom and balcony showed no sign of them, even when he sent a ripple of magic out to every corner in search of a spell that might be hiding them from his sight. On the dais, his father subtly sat up straight and reached back with concern, but Noctis barely noticed. He felt too big for his own skin, the air felt both too cold and too hot and his lungs itched-.

Prompto gently gripped his upper arms, grounding and calming and Noctis wasn’t sure when he’d gotten there, but it must have been fast because no one had noticed Noctis’s budding panic attack yet, “Noct. Noct, breathe. What’s wrong, buddy?”

Ignis and Gladiolus were making their way over too, concern hidden in the line of their shoulders, and in the moments before they arrived, Noctis gripped Prompto’s arms tightly in return and growled, “The Six just crashed my birthday party. **All** of them.”

Prompto gaped, “ **What**?”

“You heard me.”

“Noct? Is everything alright?” Ignis settled into place at Noctis’s elbow and Gladiolus turned so that his bigger frame was mostly shielding Noctis from any prying eyes or clicking cameras as his Hand murmured, “It is not too early for me to make your excuses. We can leave if you need to.”

Noctis inhaled, exhaled, tried very hard not to think about what the Astrals had said and what it implied, “No. No, I’m-, I’m alright. I just … I just had a moment.” Of talking to the Six and getting cryptic messages that were probably supposed to be reassuring, but most of the times they tried to reassure him it just came across as ominous —most of the time they tried to reassure him, he was about to run headfirst into **mortal peril** —.

Ignis eyed Noctis for a long moment, then nodded curtly, “I am making your excuses.” Noctis half-started to protest, but quieted at the look in Ignis’s eyes, “You should take some time to prepare yourself anyway, Noctis. It has been a long night, and you have still have to complete the Crystal’s Rite.”

Noctis huffed, because there was very little to prepare himself **for** in that regard, but he let himself by escorted away and out of the ballroom by his Retinue, ignoring the clicking cameras that followed his departure, the murmurs of the nobility, and his father’s concerned look as Ignis discreetly passed a message along to him through Cor. Gladiolus stayed close at his back, looming and menacing to anyone who dared approach even though his shoulders were still relaxed and a polite neutral expression on his face. Prompto hovered at his side, gaze bouncing from spot to spot, hyper alert for any threats —and no doubt looking for any sign of the Astrals that had been secretly crashing the party—. Ignis led the way out a side door to the ballroom, nodding to the two Kingsglaive guarding it, who nodded back respectfully —Noctis dipped his chin in greeting to them as he passed, but now was not the time for actual conversation—. They stepped out into the corridor and followed Ignis to the elevator. Soon enough, the sounds of the party were gone and there was only the soft background noise of the Citadel at night.

Something unwound in Noctis’s shoulders despite himself, and by the time they had stepped out of the elevator on the floor where the royal suites were located, he was grateful that Ignis had removed him from the ballroom. Dealing with the noise and the crowd had been a strain, and while he could have continued dealing with it before … meeting the Astrals had been too much of an upset. As had their message. _Whatever comes is merely what must be._ What was that supposed to mean and how was that supposed to be comforting? The Prophecy had been “what must be” until Noctis had won his argument with Bahamut on the cusp of his own death and gotten flung back into his younger past body. But now the timeline had been well and truly rewritten, what with the Accursed being gone, and Noctis going “missing” three years, and Drautos being … well. Drautos. In Noctis’s mind, “what must be” was a whole lot looser than it used to be, but that only made it more confusing.

Prompto pet Noctis’s hair and Noctis became aware of the room again, of sitting in a plush chair while his Retinue hovered close in worry. Ignis’s hand was resting on the back of his neck like an anchor, and Prompto was gently scraping his nails against Noctis’s scalp in a nice, soothing way, “You okay, Noct?”

“…Yeah.” He couldn’t talk about the Astrals in front of Ignis and Gladiolus. Not now. There would be too much to explain and it skirted too close to topics he didn’t want to ever talk about. “It just … got a little much, I guess.”

Ignis’s hand squeezed softly, “You did well, Noct. That was a perfectly acceptable public appearance.”

Gladiolus was leaning against a bookshelf nearby and he flashed a grin when Noctis looked at him, “Yeah. You did good, Noct. No harm in bowing out.”

Noctis rubbed a hand over his face, “What time is it?”

Ignis checked his watch even though Noctis was sure he already knew the time, “Twenty after eleven. You have forty minutes to prepare for the Rite.”

“Perfect,” Noctis muttered without enthusiasm. Because the Rite was going to go fine. It was going to be … boring after everything he’d experienced in the future unwritten. Or at least that’s what he had thought before the Astrals showed up. Now he had an uneasy feeling that something dramatic was going to happen.

_If they do something dumb like all manifest in the room to declare my title just to give everyone else a heart attack, I am going to_ ** _stab_** _them._ Noctis shook that thought away and pulled himself to his feet, “I’m gonna-. Check on Dyn. Then take a shower.”

Gladiolus grunted approvingly, while Prompto and Ignis let Noctis go and stepped back, “Good idea.”

Dyn wasn’t in the royal suite right now. Since he was being watched over by Drautos, he was actually staying at her place rather than the Citadel. Ignis had been surprised by Noctis suggesting that, but the fact of the matter was that tonight there would be a **lot** of attention on the Citadel and none where Drautos lived. Easier to hide Dyn there than here if some nosy reporter managed to sneak away from their guards —it was rare, but it had happened before—. Even so, his instincts were itching and he had to resist the urge to leave the Citadel and personally check on things. He called instead, and Drautos answered immediately. After getting confirmation that yes, Dyn was perfectly safe and fairly content, and that he had been put to bed on time, Noctis hopped in the shower and tried to ignore the slowly rising itch in his instincts.

Dyn was fine. Drautos didn’t live so far away that Noctis couldn’t still sense his son when he reached out with his magic, and he’d intentionally left one of his weapons there in case he needed to warp over —it was far, but with his reserves he could pull it off, he was certain—. His father was fine too, he could feel Regis’s magic still in the ballroom, watching the proceedings with _bored-attentive_ magic. There had been no alerts of security breaches, and the flickering lights of the Kingsglaive scattered around the Citadel were all still calm and unharmed. Everything was fine.

Everything didn’t **feel** fine. But his therapist had pointed out more than once that feelings were not always a good judge of reality. His feelings were valid, and he shouldn’t just ignore them. But he had issues —his words, not hers— and sometimes they made him think things, feel things, that weren’t accurate to the situation at hand. He couldn’t solely judge the situation based on feeling. Not when there was no observable or logical reason for them.

He wondered with grim amusement, as he opened his closet and rebelliously chose a new outfit to wear for the Rite, if Astrals crashing his birthday party counted as an “observable or logical reason” to be agitated.

Noctis pulled down one of his finer suits, tailored and pristine. He didn’t really care about dressing up for this, literally all he was going to be doing was walking across a room, listening to a message he’d already heard a lifetime ago, then walking out again looking as dignified as possible. But Ignis and his father would both want him to look the part, so fancy suit it was. He paused as he looked himself over in the mirror before putting on the suit. Taking a moment to really … look at himself.

Astrals, had he really looked this young last time around?

_No,_ he thought grimly at his reflection, _I looked younger._ The eighteen year old Noctis of the previous timeline hadn’t had hair long enough to pull into a short tail or a small, fancy braid. The old Noctis hadn’t seen war and death and a world fallen into ruin. The old Noctis hadn’t been on the run for three years, two of those with a child to raise. Hadn’t been still teetering on the line between healthy and unhealthy weight. The old Noctis had only had one nightmare worth screaming awake over.

The old Noctis hadn’t been covered in a story woven by scars.

They crisscrossed and overlapped each other in many places, different types and different severities. Some of them were animal, teeth and claws that scored his arms and lower legs and wrapped like bands around his ankles and calves from being dragged along the ground by hungry beasts. Some of them were bullets from when he hadn’t managed to phase in time —or hadn’t had the magic left to do so—, small and round on his shoulders and ribs and upper arms. There were more on his hips, hidden by his underwear, he knew. One or two scars on his back and sides were even the faint ripples of burns, healed by magic before they could become truly devastating or immobilizing. But most of them…

Most of them were blades.

Swords, axes, daggers, lances, shuriken, **scythes**. His body from his hips to his collarbone was a tapestry of lines. They slashed across his ribs, dashed horizontal lines across his belly and back, curved against the bone of his shoulders and stood out like exclamation marks against the muscles of his chest. Everyone thought that he’d gained them slowly. Over the course of those three years as he “escaped” and then ran. And some of them **had** been gained during his flight through Niflheim back to Lucis. But the vast majority of them had all occurred over the course of one night, healed in the heat of battle by cure spells and elixirs and phoenix downs that he had barely managed to apply before flinging himself into battle again.

He had been the victor, but it could **never** be said that Ardyn hadn’t made him pay for it every bloody, exhausting inch of the way.

Ignis knocked softly on the door to his room and asked quietly through the wood if he was alright or if he needed any help. Noctis shook himself out of memory, called back that he was fine, and then set about putting on his chosen suit. He glanced at himself in the mirror again when he was done and frowned. Something was missing. It didn’t feel right somehow, even though he knew it looked just fine. He stared at himself for several long seconds before tentatively reaching into armiger and pulling something out. It was clean now, but even the best launderers wouldn’t have been able to restore it completely, and Noctis was definitely not one of those. Still. It was clean, if worn and darkened in spots with old blood. He had trimmed off its ratty, tattered edges and painstakingly restitched the hem by hand at some point during his journey to find Ardyn. It had felt important to do so, and it had kept his mind off the aching, gnawing loneness that came from traveling without his brothers at his side.

Noctis gently settled it over his shoulders and clipped it into place with its battered gold chain, then looked at himself again.

…Better. He looked a little more his age. His **mental** age rather than his physical one.

Ignis and Gladiolus both raised eyebrows when he walked into the sitting room, but Prompto just blinked in something akin to remembrance and then pulled his camera out of armiger to snap a picture, “Looking good man! You look dignified.”

Ignis hesitantly stepped forward, running his fingers along the edges before stepping back, “I don’t recall seeing this in your closet.”

Noctis looked away and deflected, “I have a big closet.”

Ignis made a skeptical noise, but seemed to recognize that Noctis was neither going to answer questions about it or take it off, so instead he nodded, “It suits you.”

Gladiolus eyed it, “Makes you look like your dad. Did you steal that from his closet or something?” Noctis choked on the memories of the Long Night. Of Ignis gently bringing out the boxes from armiger that contained three Kingsglaive uniforms and one outfit still fit for a king. Cor had recovered it. No one knew how. But he had thought they might fit Noctis once he finally returned, and they had.

The short, diagonal, battle-worn cape hanging from his shoulders was all that was left of that outfit. Noctis hadn’t been able to salvage the rest after his time-travel. The only reason he’d had the cape at all was because he’d flicked it into his armiger at some point during his **first** final battle with Ardyn so that it wouldn’t get in his way while hurtling from air to building to ground to sky in a blur of armiger magic and blood and fury.

Noctis swallowed back the memory as Prompto touched his elbow in solidarity and shrugged, “My dad and I just have the same good taste, I guess.”

Ignis gave Gladiolus a sharp look and the bigger man subsided. Then Noctis’s Hand checked the time again and hummed, “Well. Perfect timing, Noct. We should be going. The Rite is supposed to begin in just a few more minutes.” The four of them filed out of Noctis’s suite and back to the elevator, and Noctis didn’t let himself think about anything at all as they rode it up and up and up all the way to the most secure floor of the Citadel.

Regis, Clarus, and Cor were already waiting for them when they got there, and Regis smiled warmly at the sight of Noctis’s outfit, “You look dashing, Noctis. Perhaps you should have worn that to the party.”

Noctis shrugged, “Save the best for last, right?” He glanced at the large double doors waiting for them, “We good to go?”

Regis’s smile turned a little stiff, his magic brushing against Noctis’s and feeling his unease, “You will be fine, Noctis. Every Lucis Caelum before you has gone through the Rite. It is nothing to be nervous about.” _I know,_ Noctis didn’t say, _I’ve seen them all happen. I’ve seen my_ ** _own_** _happen once before. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to just get this over with before something dramatic happens._ Noctis shrugged and Regis sighed and gave up trying to soothe Noctis for the moment, “Yes, we are ready. Just remember, make straight for the Crystal, listen to what the Draconian has to say, then return. We will bear witness, but-,”

“None may approach the Crystal during the Rite but royal blood that is entering it’s eighteenth year, I know.”

Regis gently clasped Noctis’s shoulder as Clarus signaled the guards to open the doors, “You’ll be fine. You already know what your title will be, anyway. This is merely … a formality.”

Noctis pretended not to notice the way Regis’s voice faltered just for a moment, or the deep sadness in his magic. Because Noctis did know what his title would be, he’d known the first time too. Luna had told him what he was, but at the time only Regis had truly known what it would cost —what it **had** cost, in a future unwritten—, “Yeah. I know. Let’s do this.” _Let’s get it over with._

The doors swung open to admit them, and Noctis, Regis, and their respective Retinues all entered the chamber of the Crystal. The doors closed behind them with a dull boom, and in the darkness of the unlit room, the Crystal began to gleam a dull, thrumming purple. Noctis took a breath and felt magic coat his lungs with uncomfortable familiarity. For a moment he was back in Niflheim. In Gralea, the city of his nightmares. Stumbling and running despite his exhaustion across the narrow bridge to where the Crystal hung in chains, ready to beg for its aid to save his friends from the horde of daemons he had left them to face only to realize **too late** that the Crystal’s power came at a steep, steep price. That it had all been a **trap**.

He could almost hear Ardyn’s laughter in the shell of his ear, his smug poison as he whispered a secret — _Ardyn._ ** _Lucis. Caelum._** _Is my proper name—_ and Noctis was pulled deeper and deeper into the source of every Lucis Caelum’s power.

_This isn’t that day,_ he told himself as he started walking forward and the Crystal began to slowly brighten in welcome. _This isn’t going to be like that day,_ he chanted over and over in his head as he felt the Crystal’s magic reach out and brush against the wellspring already full to bursting in his soul. The Crystal started to glow brighter, the purple shifting slowly to the signature blue of armiger. The glow turned into wisps of light that reached out across the room, whispering of _time-ages-past-and-present-come-and-gone-and-future_ that made Noctis’s throat threaten to close over. He could feel every memory. Every moment. Those ten years —an eternity, an instant, a heartbeat, an age, did it really matter and could he really be sure it was something as specific as ten years when it had felt so much longer yet so much shorter— spent in Crystal were burned into his soul and nothing stood out more right now than that time.

The past crowded close and with each slow, forcibly measured step, it felt like another ghost walked with him. They stood alongside him, empty hands folded over their chests and postures straight on either side of his path like sentinels saluting their king. Twelve of the thirteen who had killed him stood before him on either side of his impending path, rising in their armored glory to line his way, and the memories were close enough he could almost feel those weapons pushing out of his soul and catching on the skin of his back-shoulders-ribs-chest. Beyond them, the others lingered. Those who were remembered, those who were forgotten, those who were venerated, those who were erased by tragedy and war and time. They hovered in the shadows, filled the room to bursting and pricked Noctis’s soul with the weight of their gazes as they spoke over each other in low murmurs of _memory-past-future-life-death-memory-_ ** _listen-_** that made his teeth ache and his lungs burn with the chill of remembered steel sliding home.

He was maybe halfway to the Crystal when he realized, somewhere in the back of his mind beneath the murmurs and the memories, that he wasn’t imagining the presence of the Lucii. They were **there** , watching and saluting and whispering _we-know-you-we-see-you-hear-us-heed-us-past-present-future-bear-_ ** _witness_** _-._ Were the ghostly blades buried in his body real too? Were the fractals of magic dripping like blood from his chest and back and ribs and sides where the blades emerged all really there? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t stop long enough to tell. Noctis kept walking, and around him the whispers grew louder, more insistent, echoing and layering and pulling him on until he was a third of the way to the Crystal and he realized that he wanted to stop.

He couldn’t stop.

The wisps of Crystal magic were around him now, reaching out and curling against his _body-mind-soul_ , tugging and tangling with the magic already poured inside him. The magic that hadn’t always been his, but had been given to him those ten years as he’d _lived-breathed-died-lived_. Like called to like, and under weight of the push and pull he could no more stop walking than he could stop hearing the Lucii sing.

He wasn’t imagining them, but a part of him dimly, faintly wondered if anyone else could see them, hear them. He couldn’t hear anyone protesting or commenting behind him. Couldn’t hear his father gasp over the Lucii or his Retinue cry out over the blades in his skin and crystalline fragments dripping down his blades and clothes. So maybe they couldn’t see. He thought about looking over his shoulder to see, but he couldn’t turn his head. The Crystal pulled at his attention, dragged him closer step by aching step, and his lungs hurt, his bones hurt, his **soul** hurt under the weight of the magic inside and magic without _pushing-pulling-pushing-pulling_ endlessly around him.

The murmurs grew louder and the words grew clearer, and when his slow, reluctant steps brought him finally in line with the first of the Thirteen, they spoke.

**“Open your eyes, O Chosen, as our plight is repeated.”** Said the Clever in his mind. _Why? Why is it repeated?_

The Just tilted her great armored head as he passed, answering the thought that was in his mind, **“For thy life is a riddle.”** _A riddle for what?_

The Pious folded his hands over his heart, helm bowed as if in prayer, **“To bear our raptures and sorrows.”**

Across from the Pious, the Tall intoned, **“To you we have listened.”**

**“For the world you have suffered,”** The Wise murmured with something like sorrow on his right hand.

On his left the Fierce growled, **“And unto you we entrusted tomorrow.”**

The Oracle raised a palm in a sign of blessing, **“In this moment doth our life flow for you.”**

The Conqueror’s helm bowed as Noctis passed, as he was pulled ever closer no matter how badly he wanted to stop and turn around, **“In this moment we acknowledge you.”**

The Warrior’s empty hands turned upward in something like submission, **“O Chosen King, Bringer of Dawn, Keeper of Light.”**

**“You who hath lived,”** praised the Rogue.

**“You who hath died,”** mourned the Wanderer.

**“You whom the Astrals themselves know.”** Bit out the Mystic in something like _bitterness-regret-shame-pride_ over the endless chanting and murmurs of the others in the shadows.

Noctis finally managed to force his feet to a stop, but he was so **close** to the Crystal now. Just out of reach of touching it physically, so close he was all but drowning in the feel of it, in the painful power of its light. He already had this light under his skin, if the Crystal tried to force any more inside him he knew he would die-.

Oh.

Oh no.

“Please,” he whispered to the watching memories, to the Crystal, to the Astrals themselves even, “Please. No.”

The response was a rolling thunder, a jumble of whispers and shouts and cries, of answers and questions and opinions that all echoed endlessly in his head until he couldn’t think, couldn’t argue, couldn’t **breathe** \- “ **Stop** ,” he forced out past clenched teeth and rasping, steel-punctured lungs, “I can’t do this. I can’t-, I **promised**.” He’d promised his father he wouldn’t disappear again. He’d promised Dionysus he would be there to love and raise him. He’d promised Prompto he wouldn’t die for the world a second time. He’d promised. But he couldn’t move away. He couldn’t be heard over the multitude. Couldn’t really breathe past the ghostly weapons that shifted and slid inside him with each movement, past the weight of them trying to drag him down. He couldn’t- he wanted- he’d tried- he- **he-**.

The voices suddenly fell silent, and the clamor became expectant stillness. Past the weapons in his skin and the magic threatening to burn him alive, the taste of blood and sacrifice of _futures-unwritten-pasts-unwound_ , he felt hands rest on his shoulders. He looked up, and though the helmet and armor were unfamiliar, the gentle touch was, the leg brace was, the cape was.

The magic was.

**“Chosen King of Crystal and Dawn,”** Rumbled the Father —who shouldn’t be there, because Regis was alive, Regis was **still alive** but in Noctis’s future he hadn’t been, and those memories had come with him all the way into the past— into Noctis’s mind, **“It is time to end this journey.”**

“I don’t want to do this again,” Noctis breathed past lips that dripped crystalline shards like blood, “I don’t want to leave. I promised. I made … I made a promise.”

**“I know.”** The hands squeezed tighter, then let go, and the Father took one long step back. He held out an expectant armored hand, a clear point amid the churning of _magic-memories-sacrifice-Prophecy-loss-answer-the-call_. In the eerie silence of the watching Lucii, the patient, knowing weight of their gazes, Noctis felt so very, very tired. So very, very small. He had already done this. He had already been here. He had been promised a second chance. Why now was fate coming back for him again? For a moment he thought about fighting it. Fighting his way back through the crowd and toward the living who were so silent they must not see any of this —but were they really silent? Or if he found the will to turn around, would he see them screaming for him to stop with words the magic of the Crystal had stolen away? He couldn’t turn around, so he didn’t know—.

There was a rustle of fabric and armor, more an impression of movement than the actual thing. Noctis looked up. The Father knelt before him, both hands open, palms up in welcome. Magic curled around him, not smothering or demanding or agonizing, but rather as gentle as a parent’s hug.

“My son,” said the Father-, no, not the Father. The voice was softer than the Father’s had been just now. Gentler. Like the beloved parent Noctis had always known rather than the memory of a Lucian king still-here-yet-long-gone. This was **Regis** , these memories of a Regis come and gone and not-yet-here in Noctis’s mind, looking at the son he had loved and mourned for all Noctis’s life from behind that expressionless helmet. Magic tightened, shored him up, cradled him close. The memory of Regis-that-had-fallen slowly tilted his head down as if to catch Noctis’s gaze, to hold it even though the helmet had no gaps through which eyes could be seen.

“Trust in me.”

Noctis inhaled, feeling all the blades-that-weren’t-yet-had-once-been shifting against his skin and bone and back and chest. He closed his eyes. Exhaled slowly and opened them. He stepped forward with shaking hands toward gleaming palms of magic and memory and metal. He leaned forward…

Pressed his forehead against that of the cold crystalline helmet as he laid his hands over those of a Regis from another life and felt the rough surface the Crystal beneath his palms, “Okay.”

The pain crashed into him like a wave, not unexpected, but still so deep it stole his breath as the Clever stepped up behind him and freed his crossbow from Noctis’s spine without warning. Noctis bit down on the urge to scream as the Just followed behind and wrenched her shield loose of the small of his back. The Pious came next, his scepter pulled from its spot beneath Noctis’s ribs with agonizing speed and power. One by one they came and reclaimed the weapons lodged in his body. The Tall, the Wise, the Fierce, the Oracle, one after another after another until Noctis could no longer hold back the hoarse wail squeezing out of his battered, punctured lungs. He was able to feel exactly who it was that pulled their weapon free, able to feel their magic **leave him** one after another, wrenching free with the weapons that represented them, leaving behind what felt like gaping holes in his _body-soul-mind_ , aching ruptures from which Crystal magic poured out like blood from wounds.

Conquerer, Rogue, Wanderer, Mystic, in the order they had spoken, now they pulled their weapons free, and beneath their touch Noctis could only scream until he lost the breath to do even that.

Finally there was only one left. Only one who hesitated, just as he had before a throne shrouded in endless night. The Crystal was burning against Noctis’s hands, but his grip on it was the only thing keeping him on his knees rather than facedown on the floor. The light inside him was gushing out, and the light from the Crystal was surging closer, a push and pull of tides that threatened to merge and breach some invisible shore Noctis couldn’t fathom the edges of. But it didn’t yet. It couldn’t yet.

There was one sword left.

The Father wrapped gentle hands around the hilt, something sorrowful and aching echoing in the air all around, **“Oh my son,”** murmured the memory of a Regis that had loved and already lost, **“You walked tall. Know that I am, and will always be, so very proud of you.”** The Sword of the Father buried to the hilt in Noctis’s chest gleamed like a fallen star, the last dam to the Crystal’s power, the last check to the meeting of future-past and past-present. Then it ripped free in one smooth, agonizing motion, and all the Light burning beneath Noctis’s skin poured free without restraint or separation.

Crystal’s future met Crystal’s past. Push and pull and merge and **rise**.

As Noctis’s world went burningly **blue** , he heard every last Lucii cry out in one voice as loud as a dragon’s roar, louder even than the voice of the Draconian that emerged from the blue as it crashed over every sense, **“Beloved Chosen of Our Star. This day we know you no longer as a Bringer of the Dawn.”**

**“For your sacrifice and your kindness, we know you hereafter as the Merciful.”**

The world went from burning blue to blissful, numbing white and Noctis let go.

* * *

Regis had known since his son was four that someday he would lose him. He had known since that day he foolishly, impatiently asked how many more kings would die before the Chosen King arrived and was told that there would only be one. Regis had known that someday his son would be king, and in ascending to the throne, his son’s life would be forfeit for the sake of the world. Because of that, he had tried to give his son as happy and normal a life as possible, but that too had failed when Noctis was snatched out right out of his bedroom when he was fourteen. Regis had spent three years clinging to hope and searching, sometimes kept going only by the cruel reassurance that surely his son couldn’t be dead, because he was not yet king. Surely the Astrals would not let his son die before he was crowned, it would go against their Prophecy.

His son had come home eventually. Scarred and skittish, too old and jagged for his own skin, with a son of his own he loved yet had not chosen to have at his side and magic so powerful that sometimes even brushing the edges of it were enough to leave Regis breathless. His son had come home. His son was supposed to be **safe** again, at least for as many years as Regis could force his health to linger, as long as he could hold onto the throne.

Now, as he watched the ghosts of kings long gone brutally tear their weapons free of his child’s body and the Crystal’s light rise like a tidal wave to sweep over them all, he felt like screaming. He **had** been screaming. He and everyone else in the room who was still among the living had started shouting for Noctis to turn back the moment his body had started to glow with magical scars through his clothes, the moment those scars had slowly pushed open to reveal the ghostly weapons that had presumably **made** them, though when or how or **why** , Regis could not fathom.

Regis had tried to pull his son back, but the Crystal had lashed out, powerful tendrils of energy forming a shield that physically held at bay anyone who would stop Noctis as he walked slowly into the crowd of ghosts, as the weapons pushed further out of his skin and crystalline fragments dripped and splashed to the floor from the blades like memories of blood. The closer his son got to the Crystal, the paler and most ghostly he seemed to become and the louder they called —begged, **pleaded** — for him to turn back. His son’s newfound Heart had screamed like a gutted thing, flinging himself against the barrier holding them back again and again and again, trying to get inside, trying to stop his young prince-brother, wailing over and over that Noctis “had promised” in a voice that danced with the edges of the grieving madness that Regis could feel in his own blood. The others of his son’s Retinue joined in, pounding on the barrier with bare hands and bodies in place of the weapons they suddenly could not summon and **howling**.

Regis was no better. He was Noctis’s father, he **couldn’t** be better. He could do no less than them, to fling his body and his armiger against the Crystal’s barrier and **beg** his son to turn around until his voice was hoarse from it.

Noctis never reacted. He could not seem to hear them over the indecipherable clamor of the Kings of Yore as they filled the chamber from floor to ceiling, floating or standing, all watching, all speaking, all **urging** Noctis on and beneath it what chance did the voices of the living have to be heard? Regis slammed his shoulder against the barrier, then his hands, then his armiger, then repeated it all over again as he shouted, pleaded. Not yet. Not **yet**. His son was no king, he was still a **boy** , they **couldn’t take him yet**. He was only eighteen, had only turned eighteen a few **minutes** ago, and before that had been unwillingly attending his own birthday ball with an air of bored, strained patience. The night had been so **normal**. People had eaten, had talked, had danced, and though his son had gotten overwhelmed by the crowd eventually, he had done so **well**. He had made so much progress since Cor had found him in that outpost, skittish and feral enough to attack anyone that came too close too fast on instinct. His son had been doing so well. He had been **healing**.

They couldn’t take him from Regis yet. Please. **Please**.

The magic-formed memories did not listen. The Crystal did not listen. The Astrals did not listen.

His son did not listen.

Noctis stepped ever closer to the Crystal, and above the clamor the voices, some of the most famous and still remembered kings and queens rose. They spoke to his son and their words made no sense. They spoke of riddles, of raptures and of sorrows. Of his son suffering for the world, of them giving him their power. They told Noctis that he had lived.

They told Noctis that he had **died**.

They told him the Astrals themselves knew him, and all the while they spoke the ghostly weapons grew more distinct and real and the crystalline shards poured down onto the floor like blood, glowing in ever larger puddles in the wake of his son’s slow, ceaseless march —why did he keep walking, why did he walk so **tall** , like a king to his fate when he was just a **child** , when he was still just Regis’s baby boy in Regis’s heart—.

Finally, **finally** Noctis stopped and for a moment all was silent. Even his son’s Heart stopped his screaming. Everyone was watching, waiting, **hoping** Noctis had pulled himself free of the Crystal’s influence and would turn around, because he was only eighteen. He was only **eighteen**. Surely it was not already time for the Prophecy. Surely- **surely** -.

Another Lucii appeared directly between Noctis and the Crystal, and this one Regis did not know. The king’s armor and helm were not any seen in the paintings or described in the surviving ancient records, yet he did not look like one of the kings so ancient his name had been lost. Those kings were indistinct. Shadows that lingered and watched even now on the edges, their shapes just this shade of undefined.

This king had no such blur. His outline was clear, and when he held out a hand to Noctis, there was something like familiarity in the gesture. The king said nothing that Regis could hear, but into the heavy silence, Noctis finally spoke.

“I don’t want to do this again,” Noctis breathed, and in his voice there was something so achingly, horrifically tired. Like he truly had died once before even though he was alive, even though he deserved to **keep living** because surely it was too early for the Astrals to take Regis’s son from him —please, please do not take his son from him, please not yet, please just a few more years—. “I don’t want to leave.” Regis’s son whispered, less a statement and more a hopeless plea, “I promised. I made … I made a promise.”

“Noct,” Prompto sobbed against the barrier in the silence that followed, “Noct, you promised. You **promised**. Please- **please** -.”

The unknown king slowly stepped back, one long stride that phased part of his body into the Crystal itself. The king knelt to Noctis and held out his hands in silent beckoning, tilted his helm like a parent coaxing a child and a part of Regis **hated** like he had never hated anyone or anything before. Not even Niflheim. Not even after learning what they had done to his son. There was no voice Regis could hear, yet Noctis sighed softly like he had been told something.

Regis felt his throat close over as Noctis’s shoulders slumped in something like acceptance and his son took the final step forward. He couldn’t even drag enough air into his squeezing lungs to scream as his son rested trusting hands on those ghostly palms and leaned his head forward to touch foreheads with that expressionless helm.

“Okay,” murmured his son to whatever it was this ghost had told him, and with his word, the stillness shattered.

The thirteen strongest Lucii lunged forward, one for each of the ghostly weapons pulling and hanging from his son’s body, and one by one they ripped their chosen royal arm free. For the first three, Noctis gave no sound. At the wrenching of the fifth weapon, Noctis gave his first, hoarse scream.

Regis pressed his forehead against the barrier that kept him from his child in his last moments and cried, silent and shaking while Cor cursed venomously and continued to bash his now-broken sword against the magic wall. As Clarus held Regis’s shoulders tight and Noctis’s Retinue wailed aloud in grief and denial. All they could do was watch and listen as the Lucii pulled their weapons free one after another and Noctis **screamed** until he had no more breath to do so.

Magic poured down his son’s chest, back, sides like blood from mortal, weeping wounds and the Crystal grew ever _brighter-brighter-brighter_ in anticipation for the last. For the Prophecy’s fulfillment that Regis had dreaded and mourned for so many years.

Finally there was only one blade left. Regis could not see the hilt, could only see the long blade from where it slid out of Noctis’s back, run all the way through where his son’s heart lay. One final blade, and one final, unknown king. Noctis was kneeling now, his hands on the jagged surface of the Crystal the only thing keeping him there as his head bowed in silent submission and the last king reached to wrap his hands around the unseen hilt. There was silence, and Regis recognized it as the silence that came from this king speaking words only Noctis could hear. Then the blade glowed. So bright it looked like true steel, then brighter still until it was like a star. The blade tore free and Noctis’s magic spilled out over the room like a raging river broken free of its dam. It swelled into an ocean tide and collided with the Crystal’s equally massive surge, and in those moments the world turned **blue** from the tidal wave of magic that rushed out toward them, Regis cried.

The wave of magic washed over him, over all of them, and Regis saw-.

Life. Life and death and time and things unwritten. Futures unmade and pasts changed. Regis felt his body grow old and frail and saw his son grow and there was no grandchild in this vision, no bubbling laughter of little Dionysus as his son became a man and the man who was still —and would always be— Regis’s baby boy was sent out for a wedding that was secretly a lie.

Regis saw himself die.

Then the Wave kept going, kept rushing right by and it took with it everything Regis had seen and felt and just learned, leaving behind nothing but the gut-wrenching twist of knowing that everything had changed and yet nothing had. Everything was the same and yet nothing was, and in the wake of the unstoppable magic tide, Regis heard the Lucii roar, **“Beloved Chosen of Our Star. This day we know you no longer as a Bringer of the Dawn.**

**“For your sacrifice and your kindness, we know you hereafter as the Merciful.”**

For a moment after the Wave ripped past them, no one moved. Regis couldn’t quite remember **how** to move in the wake of all the things he knew he had just learned, yet had also just forgotten. Then he saw his son’s body crumpled at the base of the Crystal and he was running despite his throbbing knee. Everyone was running, too scared to call Noctis’s name and risk not getting an answer, all shaking and unsteady on their legs but sprinting anyway in a shared, unspoken desperation.

Prompto Argentum go there first. Slid to a stop on his knees and pawed Noctis’s limp form onto his back as the blond teenager shook and cried and finally broke the silence, “Noct, Noct, Noct, answer me. You gotta answer me. You don’t get to do this to me, Noct, you don’t get to leave like this. Please, **please** you gotta give me a sign-.”

The rest of Noctis’s Retinue got there just before Regis did. Gladiolus falling to his knees next to Prompto with a loud thud of flesh on stone while Ignis staggered to a stop on Noctis’s other side, hands shaking as he reached to check for a pulse that Regis was already sure would not be there.

Regis staggered to a stop, sank down slowly to the floor at the sight of how **pale** Noctis looked. So still and washed out. His clothes were untouched, undamaged despite the weapons that had been ripped free moments before, and when Regis shakily ran his fingers through his son’s soft black hair, the skin beneath felt so **cold**. _Why tonight?_ Regis wanted to howl at the once again dormant Crystal, _why could you not give him more_ ** _time_** _?_ _Why-?_

“There’s a pulse.” All eyes latched onto Ignis. The young man looked sick to his stomach, but there was a set to his jaw and a fire in his eyes, “I … I can feel a pulse, I t-think. I-.”

Prompto unfroze, leaned forward to press his ear first against Noctis’s chest, then to hover an ear right over Noctis’s mouth and nose. Then the boy sat up and held out a shaking hand. An ether fell out of armiger, out of **Noctis’s** armiger, and as Prompto crushed it and then two more against Noctis’s chest everyone else surged into action. Clarus pulled out his phone, calling for an emergency medical team to come to the Crystal room while Cor spun on his heel and ran for the doors, roaring for the guards outside who were likely still stunned by the Wave that had passed through the walls like they were nothing. Regis couldn’t bring himself to move away from his son, shaking and praying as Prompto kept pulling ether after ether out of armiger and crushing it against Noctis’s chest.

“Use a phoenix down!” Gladiolus snapped, on his feet and pacing like a caged Coeurl while Ignis held fingers to Noctis’s neck and seemed to be tracking his pulse.

“He’s not bleeding,” Prompto snapped back, something unexpectedly hard and focused in his voice for a civilian boy, “he’s suffering **magic stasis**. Whatever they just did to him, they drained his magic down to **nothing**. That’s why he’s not moving, his body’s shutting down to try to preserve his **life energy**.”

A look of understanding flashed through Ignis’s eyes, “and ethers restore stamina, so they might help him regenerate magic.” Ignis immediately pulled one out as well, and the pair continued crushing them against Noctis’s barely moving chest until they finally seemed to run out. Noctis was breathing more noticeably now, but not by much. He was still far too cold and **still** , and Clarus was bellowing into the phone, so clearly there was a delay on that end, and his son needed help **now**.

Regis unhesitatingly gripped his son’s shoulders and gently pulled his limp child so that his head rested in Regis’s lap. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead against Noctis’s cold brow and rested a shaking hand on the faintly rising and falling chest. He reached out with his own magic, pushed it forward, not in greeting but in help, and felt his own breath stutter as the gaping lack inside his son greedily accepted the offered magic and then whispered feebly for more. Regis kept pushing, kept reaching out, and for the first time **truly** felt just how deep his son’s magic reserves really were. _Oh Noctis…_ he’d known his son hid how much magic he really had, kept it always carefully leashed, carefully controlled even in his most wild-eyed moments or the depths of his Quiet Days. But Regis had never truly understood just **how much** Noctis controlled, how vast his reserves were. Pouring his magic into his son was like gently pouring a glass of water into an ocean drained dry. It was water, and it was helping, but it was so very **small** compared to how much there could be that the difference was sickening.

He could feel, all the way to his bones, that if he poured every drop of magic he had into his son, it would barely be enough to fill a corner of what could be —what **had been** until just now, until the Lucii came and the Crystal reached and tore it out—. Regis kept pouring anyway, glass by glass, aware he could only give so much before he risked not only his own health but that of every glaive under his command and every citizen sheltered beneath the Wall. He poured, and slowly the dregs of Noctis’s own magic reached out to tangle with his offering, and Regis sobbed as he felt —as he realized— something else entirely more relieving and astonishing than his son’s reserves.

Noctis would have lived.

Even without the ethers, even without Regis’s aid, his son would have **lived**. He could feel it, in the tingling edges of magic being forcibly regenerated with the aid of the ethers, in the sluggish, delicate heartbeat of natural magic that was left over from what had been done to him. It would have left him vulnerable, and left him unconscious for **days** —would still likely leave him unconscious for days—, but there was still a spark there. Still a quiet, steady heartbeat of power already reaching out to build itself back up, and while it was far, far closer than Regis would have ever wanted his son to come to dying of magic exhaustion, there was still enough magic in Noctis’s soul that he would have **survived**. That he **would** survive.

Noctis was alive. He would have stayed alive even if they had been a few seconds slower to reach him. Fragile and vulnerable and exhausted, but not dead, not **gone** , not **taken** by Crystal and Prophecy and Kings of Yore.

He said as much to his son’s Retinue as they watched him pour magic into his son with haunted, fearful eyes. He clung to that as the medical team finally arrived and gently loaded Noctis onto a stretcher to rush him down to the medical ward. He whispered it hoarsely to Clarus and Cor in the aftermath as he sat by Noctis’s bedside and held the limp hand of his unconscious son with one hand and cradled his sleeping grandson —who had apparently woken up screaming when the Wave passed over and then become inconsolable until Drautos brought him to the medical ward— close with the other. And there was a look in Cor’s eyes when Clarus spoke of the Prophecy that meant if the situation weren’t so fragile he would be yelling at them. Because they had hidden the true fate of the Chosen King —of his **godson** — from him all these years and now Noctis had almost died from it.

But Dionysus was sleeping against Regis’s chest, and Cor had his own family to return to and comfort, so all he did was fix them with a burning look before finally obeying Clarus’s order to go home and rest. Leaving Clarus and Regis to sit in contemplative, confused, **relieved** silence and Noctis’s Retinue to sleep fitfully on nearby medical beds because they had refused to leave Noctis’s side for even a moment. Noctis’s Heart had even gone so far as to stubbornly drag his bed over to press against Noctis’s, and even in sleep he clung to the fingers of his prince’s hand that were not covered in little monitors or too close to IV needles.

Regis almost wished he could join them, but he knew that if he tried to close his eyes, all he would see was the unknown king luring Noctis that final step to the Crystal, and all he would hear was his son screaming in pain as royal arms he shouldn’t have had were ripped out of him by magic-formed memories. So he stayed awake. Even after his Shield dozed off in the chair next to his, even as the last dregs of night turned into sunlight through the blinds and the nurses came yet again to check on Noctis’s condition. Still unconscious, but still stable, thank the Six-. Or no. Maybe not thank the Six. It was because of the Six —or at least the Draconian— that his son had been forced into this mess. Into this near death.

And yet not actual death, not like had been promised in the Prophecy.

**_“For your sacrifice and your kindness, we know you hereafter as the Merciful.”_ **

The words echoed in his mind, and he did not understand them. Noctis was the Chosen King. They had **called** him that during those final moments, and it was prophesied that the Chosen King would die to restore the dawn. So why? Why had they come for him at a mere eighteen years when he was still uncrowned? Why had they spared his life, even if it was far too close a call for Regis’s comfort?

Why had they given him a new epithet?

And why, of all titles they could have given him, had the Draconian and the Lucii chosen the **Merciful**?

“I don’t understand,” whispered Regis to his unconscious son. But even as he said that, he knew that **whatever** had led to this, it must have something to do with those three years he had been missing. The year he’d been taken and the two spent fighting to come home with a tiny child of his own, “Oh, Noctis.” Regis murmured, “What else have you gone through that I do not know? What sacrifices have you made that your path has led to this?”

His son didn’t stir, and no answers conveniently appeared from the air. So Regis resumed sitting in silence, feeling exhaustion pull him down, yet too stressed to let sleep take him.

It took four days for Noctis to wake up. Four days of a quietly unconsolable Dionysus clinging to anyone who would hold him. Four days of Regis, Cor, Noctis’s Retinue, and even Drautos all rotating a watch at his bedside, determined to not let him wake up alone —determined to believe that he **would** wake up, because surely even the Crystal was not so cruel as to let Noctis live yet rob him of the ability to awaken—. Four days of trying to keep abreast of the reports flooding in that the wave of magic the Crystal had unleashed had been **worldwide**. That Niflheim’s armies had been devastated in the span of moments, wiped out by the thousands in the space of that one night. Four days of more and more evidence that what had happened that night had been the fulfillment of Prophecy. The ascension and sacrifice of the Chosen King.

Yet Noctis still lived. Somehow, someway, unconscious and oh so pale on his bed, he still lived.

Regis was not there for Noctis’s initial awakening. That good fortune went to young Ignis, who immediately texted everyone in the pre-established conversation set up for just this occasion before fussing over the bleary-eyed, dazed prince-brother in the hospital bed. Regis abandoned his paperwork as soon as he got the message and he, Clarus, and Cor all rushed down. Gladiolus and Prompto met them there, Dionysus sitting up in Prompto’s arms with wide eyes, looking for the first time in days like he wasn’t about to throw a tantrum at any moment.

All of them hurried inside Noctis’s private room, and the moment Regis saw his son sitting up in bed, sipping a glass of water and looking vaguely dazed beneath Ignis’s mothering, he felt tears of relief burn in his eyes. Prompto ran forward with a crying, wiggling toddler in his arms and a moment later Noctis had set down his glass and cradled his son to his chest with shaking hands, “Shh,” whispered his son hoarsely, “shhh Dyn, I’m alright. I’m … I’m okay. I’m here. I didn’t leave, I promised I wouldn’t leave.” Blue eyes looked up at all of them, a bewildered but gentle sort of joy there as he repeated, “I’m here.”

It took a long time for the room to settle down. For Gladiolus to stop snarling, because Noctis should have **turned around and come back**. For Prompto to stop shaking as he climbed onto the bed with Noctis and held tight to his prince-brother’s shoulders as he sobbed in silence. For Dionysus to cry himself to sleep with magic that sang of _relief-relief-fear-comfort-relief_. For Regis himself to stop trembling as he touched the ankle of his son that Ignis was not already gripping like a lifeline. Noctis let them all cry and talk and fuss over him with an expression of vague disbelief. Like he wasn’t sure how to react to so much concern for his person.

Or like he hadn’t expected to wake up to receive it.

“Son,” Regis finally managed, well after Dionysus had fallen asleep, “what happened?”

Noctis started to shrug, then paused and really seemed to look at Regis. A flicker of fear, raw and deep, flashed through his eyes and then his son looked away, “The Lucii came for me. I survived.”

“Noct,” growled Gladiolus, “don’t try that with us.”

Ignis’s lips trembled for a moment before he adjusted his glasses, “The Lucii- the Draconian, called you Chosen King, yet they named you the Merciful. They- they **tore** their royal arms from your body. Royal arms you should not have had.”

Noctis winced down at the sheets and gave no response. Gently, slowly, because his son looked as glass fragile as he had those first months he’d been home, Regis reached out to lay a hand on Noctis’s hair. His son flinched faintly, then glanced up at him. Regis gently stroked his son’s hair and he murmured, “Please, Noctis. I know it hurts. But please. What happened? They said you had sacrificed,” _that you had died_ , “they named you a new epithet for your kindness. You are **alive** when any other Lucis Caelum would have died from magic exhaustion after what happened.” Noctis bit his lip and Regis felt a flare of frustration that he pushed down. His son had gone through so much Regis didn’t know of and it **burned** , but because he didn’t know, he could not judge what Noctis was ready to give them.

Noctis was staring down at his own son now. At little Dionysus curled tight in his arms, his soft, red-violet hair a mess and his face puffy from dried tears. There was some kind of conflict in his son’s eyes, and Regis could see the moment it resolved. Noctis looked up, but not at any of them. He stared instead at the far wall, “The history books lie.” He swallowed hard, “They lie. The most important story of Lucis, of the world, and no one ever tells it. … **I** never tell it.” He raised a shaking hand to stroke Dionysus’s curls, and they all listened with confused, bated breath as Noctis started talking.

As he told them a story.

“The Mystic had a brother once. A Lucis Caelum with a heart that turned ever toward his people. Who had magic that was … different … from the rest of those who had come before or after. He- the Oracle and Lucis Caelum lines both get their magic from the Draconian, and I guess maybe there was some accidental bleed over, because the Mystic’s brother could **heal**. He could heal the Starscourge, pull people back from the edge, restore those who were beyond even the Oracle’s healing. But magic like that- it comes with a price, and Lucis Caelums aren’t meant to heal that way.” Noctis closed his eyes as if he was in pain, “For every person he cured, the Mystic’s brother was actually taking the Scourge into himself.”

Regis sucked in a low, disbelieving breath. But already he was thinking back, to the unknown king Noctis had seemed to recognize when Regis hadn’t, despite the years Regis had studied history when his son wouldn’t have had that chance. The king that had talked Noctis into that final step.

He didn’t like where this story was going.

“His magic was too strong to let the Scourge take him, but the more he took, the worse he got. He got too sick to eat, too pained to sleep, and still he took more. He traveled all over the land, healing whoever he could. A hundred. Five hundred. A thousand. I don’t- I don’t know how many he saved in the end. How much Scourge he held inside him. But eventually…”

“Eventually he died?” Ignis guessed softly.

Noctis laughed, quietly so as to not wake his son, and the sound was chilling, “No. Eventually he stopped being able to die from **anything**. The Scourge isn’t just a plague transmitted by daemons. It **makes** daemons.” He paused to let them all rock back from that bold claim, the definitive statement that scholars and scientists had been arguing frantically over for centuries —some said as Noctis did, but many insisted that the Scourge was just a virus passed on from the creatures, that the daemons came from some other source—. Noctis glanced at them finally, and there was an aching, bleeding sort of knowing there. The kind that could not be doubted, only feared —the kind that came from **seeing** proof in person, and oh what had Noctis seen to convince him so—.

“Daemons have a regenerative healing factor, it makes them hard to kill when there is no sunlight. And his magic could heal **from** the damage of sunlight. With the two combined- trapped- in his body together, there was no force on Eos that could make him stay dead for long. Not that he … knew it at first. Not until the coronation.”

Clarus shifted uneasily, a furrow on his brow that expressed doubt over the entire story, even if he withheld it from his words for now, “The coronation of his brother, the Mystic?”

“No. **His** coronation. Somnus was the **younger** brother, and the Astrals … had chosen the older brother for a special purpose. But the Mystic was jealous, and angry, and he didn’t believe the words of the Oracle, because he knew she loved his brother. So when the eldest returned to the capital to accept the crown, Somnus claimed that **he** had been chosen, and that his brother had come there to steal it. They fought and … and Aera-,” Noctis choked on air for a moment, and his tired magic shuddered briefly with something like guilt and horror, “The **Oracle**. She … when she tried to stop them. She got between them. The Mystic- the Mystic struck her down.”

“That’s not possible,” blurted Regis despite himself, “the Oracle and Lucis Caelum lines have been **allies** since the time of the Mystic-.”

“Why did they move to Tenebrae?” Noctis looked up slowly, something old and terrible in his eyes, “The records show the two lines used to live much closer. On the continent of Lucis. But during the time of the Mystic- they moved. All the way to the other side of the world, where it would take **months** at the fastest to pass even a single message from one party to another. If our lines were always close, if there was no disagreement, then **why did they leave**?”

No one had an answer for him. Noctis closed his eyes and it took a long moment before he resumed his story, “The Oracle died, and the Mystic’s brother … went mad from grief. He loved her and his brother both, and the Mystic had betrayed him. He attacked them, and Gilgamesh broke his oaths to ever protect the line of Lucis Caelum by raising his blade against the Mystic’s brother. Together they killed him. And then they saw him wake up. They tried … over and over, but nothing worked, and they were convinced that he was a daemon, not just a threat to the throne but a **monster** , so they locked him away. But he wasn’t a monster, he was the king, he was the king the Astrals had **Chosen**.”

Noctis ran his fingers over the blankets with unseeing eyes and whispered, “Have you ever wondered why Gilgamesh haunts the Tempering Grounds to this day? Why the line of Lucis are doomed to die early? Why the Ring given to us by Bahamut causes so much pain? It’s not because of the Prophecy, it’s not because of duty. It’s a **punishment**. A price for what was done to the first true Chosen King. Somnus wanted the throne, so he **got it** , but heavy is the crown, and high is the price of treason.”

Regis breathed slowly and tried not to jump to conclusions, to neither doubt nor demand. But … this was a lot. And he also didn’t know how it related to what had happened in the Crystal chamber.

Gladiolus asked the question for him, “How does this relate to what happened in there? Was that … are you saying that was some kind of punishment too?”

Noctis shook his head, but when he spoke, he didn’t answer the question, he just kept rambling softly, “Do you know what it’s like … to not die? To watch time unfold around you, flow past you, only for you to be the rock in the river that never changes? Never moves? To-. They-. They locked him up. They couldn’t kill him, he couldn’t **die** , so they locked him up. Nobody goes to Angelgard, nobody goes unless they are assigned to **guard it** in secret and no one even questions **why** anymore.”

Regis felt ice in his blood as something snapped into place, “…Adagium. Adagium was the Mystic’s brother.”

“Niflheim found him.” Noctis whispered, and that was as much an agreement as it was a strange sort of condemnation, “They found him and dragged him back to their laboratories. They tested him and taunted him and he was **sick**. He was isolated for two **thousand years** with nothing but his own grief and anger and the Scourge for company. He went mad. I don’t blame him. I could never blame him. Not after I learned-.”

His son’s hands were shaking faintly as they curled around the sleeping Dionysus again. Noctis looked sick, pale and shaking and frightened on a deep, untouchable level and the only thing that seemed to help was his Retinue unconsciously crowding closer to him. But Regis still didn’t understand how this related to the Crystal, to the Lucii, to their epithet and their leaving his son alive. Except … _laboratories._ ** _Labs_** _._ Regis sucked in a breath, “You met him. Adagium. You met him in Niflheim.” _You met him in the labs, when they were torturing you to create Dionysus._

Noctis closed his eyes. There was something like defeat there, “He told me his name there. Everything hurt. I was so **scared**. ‘Ardyn Lucis Caelum is my name’ he said and there was nothing I could do-. Nothing I could **say** -.”

_Ardyn-_ “Ardyn **Izunia**? Niflheim’s missing Chancellor?”

“He’s dead.” Noctis opened his eyes again and in the light of the hospital room they were tinged a faint, bloody read, “It was-. He … he found me. He knew what I was. That I was the Chosen King who had been chosen to replace him, and I was right there in his reach-.” Regis watched his son shut down, breathing slow, counting himself down from a panic attack while Prompto huddled close and whispered comforts and Regis ached with the desire to help. Slowly, so as not to frighten his son, Regis reached out and took one of his hands. Noctis clung to the touch with a sharp breath, and when Dionysus began to stir, Noctis pulled some of his magic tightly around the boy like a blanket of _comfort-soft-sleep-calm_ even as the rest continued to roil beneath the weight of his old fears and pain.

Noctis inhaled, exhaled, clung to Regis’s hand and Prompto’s tight grip on his shoulders, “He didn’t want to kill a child. He wanted a fight against the Chosen of the Astrals. The one who had usurped him. Somnus has been dead two thousand years, but I was there, and I was the one who bore his title long lost. He wanted to fight the Chosen King. To prove he was stronger. But … I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t strong enough.” Noctis blinked and his eyes were empty. Hauntingly, achingly empty, “So he made me ready.”

Regis knew that once he was out of here, out of his son’s sight, he was going to be sick. Violently sick from the sheer rage and grief and **guilt** —he’d let his son suffer this, he hadn’t saved Noctis, hadn’t been able to find him in time—, “The royal arms. You shouldn’t have them. They lie hidden in royal tombs all over the country. All over the **world**.”

“They aren’t that hard to find. If you aren’t afraid to risk death scouring the wilds for them. There’s only a few of them left. And at the end … he didn’t **need** to go looking for the sword of the Father.” Regis looked up briefly and locked gazes with a tight jawed Clarus as understanding began to burn. Noctis was **convinced** that Ardyn Izunia had once been Adagium, had once been the brother of the Mystic.

Ardyn wouldn’t have needed to the blade of a living enemy king as the final royal arm if he gave **his own**.

Had that unknown king, the one who delivered the final blow, been Ardyn? The lost and fallen brother of the Mystic?

“So this Ardyn,” Ignis whispered slowly, “he … forced you to become the Chosen King. Despite not having access to the Crystal or the Ring?”

Noctis was staring into space again, he looked so tired, and Regis wondered what terrible scars Noctis was going to speak of now. What **else** had been done to him while he was lost and assaulted in foreign lands. He couldn’t imagine it was anything better than what they’d just heard. Surely once Niflheim had gotten their samples to make Dionysus, they wouldn’t have cared if their Chancellor played with and tormented the prince of the enemy nation. Noctis closed his eyes with something like defeat. Like he was going to admit something he never wanted to think about —and after everything he’d said here and before, everything his therapist hinted at when trying to help them help Noctis, what more could go wrong? What more did Regis need to hear to know the depth of his failure?—.

“There are stories … of why Lucis Caelums can’t reach too deeply into their magic.”

Regis’s chair screeched across the floor, only saved from crashing down and waking up Dionysus by a swift-acting Cor catching it, but Regis didn’t care. He didn’t **care** , because that one sentence was enough to bring Regis’s world down around his ears, “No. Noctis, **no**. You didn’t. He didn’t **make you** …?”

“What?” Gladiolus barked, glaring at Ignis when the Hand automatically hushed him to keep from waking the toddler in their midst, then repeated in a lower voice, “What? What did he do? What happens when a Lucis Caelum uses too much magic?”

Noctis looked away, jaw tight, and didn’t answer. Regis swallowed the bile in his throat and answered for him, “There is a difference, Gladiolus, between using ‘too much’ magic and going ‘too deeply’. To use too much is to become magic exhausted, or even induce stasis. But to reach too deeply … our magic comes from the Crystal, and there are stories … stories of Lucis Caelums who tried to gain more power than their natural reserves allowed by seeking out that connection. By using the connection to go deeper into the Crystal’s magic in hopes of gaining more. Those Lucis Caelums **died** , mad and screaming of things they had never seen. That had never been.”

Noctis shook his head slowly, and Prompto’s hands were white knuckled on his prince’s shoulders, the same as Regis’s hand was white knuckled on his son’s, “Not ‘what’s never been’. They went mad from the things that have already passed. The Crystal is memory. **Magic** is memory. Every Lucis Caelum knows that. The Ring proves that. The Ring isn’t … it isn’t separate from the Crystal. It’s a focal point for it. For the memories inside. The memories of every Lucis Caelum that has ever lived and breathed and **died**. The deeper you go, the more magic you get but … the more memories you have in return. But they aren’t your own memories and- and it **hurts**. It hurts so much, and it makes everything so confusing and hard to bear.”

_And it hurts. It hurts so much and it makes everything so confusing and hard to bear._ Personal, intimate, **knowing**. Regis stepped fully into his son’s space and leaned down to hug Noctis tightly on the opposite side of his son’s clinging Heart. On some unspoken word, Ignis reached past them to gently pluck Dionysus out of his father’s lap and transfer him to Clarus, clear of the brewing emotions, the storm about to break, “Noctis.” Breathed Regis, “…How deep? How deep were you forced to go to achieve the power of the Chosen King?” To achieve power greater than that, because the Chosen King was destined to die, yet when his destiny had come, his son had survived.

A heartbeat. A moment frozen between the brewing of a storm and the breaking of it. Then Noctis’s hand squeezed Regis’s painfully tight, and in the silence, his son whispered, “I saw her die. I saw the sword cut her down. I **felt it**. The blade in my hand, the blood on my clothes and face. I heard her die and I- he- Somnus **didn’t care**. I- he called her a **fool**. He called Aera a fool for trying to defend her lover, for trying to stop one brother from killing another and I **killed her-**.” The dam broke and Noctis sobbed like his heart had been ripped right out of his chest, “He tried to kill his own brother and **I was there**. I was **there** , I tried to **kill my brother**! **I locked him away for two thousand years-**!”

Magic bucked, and Dionysus came awake with a cry, sobbing his heart out, not from his own emotions, but the ones boiling over in the room and slamming into them all like a wave of _guilt-horror-it-wasn’t-me-please-_ ** _please-forgive-me_** _._ Clarus swept out of the room with the toddler in an effort to shield him from the emotions, and Regis could not help. Regis could not help, because he was already trying to hold his son together even as Noctis shook to pieces from the guilt of lifetimes not his own, from ages and memories not his own, and though he was silent, Regis cried too. Because his son had gone too deep. His son had gone so deep he could remember the Mystic’s betrayal as if it was his own. He could remember a forgotten history **two thousand years gone** , and Regis could not bring himself to doubt that impossible claim, because the pain in Noctis’s magic and soul was too real.

The Lucii’s words were too real.

_For you sacrifice and kindness,_ they had said, and oh how those words burned. The knowledge burned. The **realization** , that his son had dived as deep into the Crystal’s magic as any living being could. Deeper even. Deeper than he should have been able to survive, yet he was still here.

Was it any wonder that the Lucii had not been able to kill him in the Crystal’s chamber, when the memories of their lives and deaths had already killed him a hundred times over?

Regis carefully managed to squeeze onto the bed so he could hold Noctis closer. It was a tight fit, seeing as Prompto was already on the other side crying into Noctis’s shoulder, but he managed with one leg hanging painfully over the side. He clung to his son, rocking him back and forth and shushing like he had when Noctis was a child, like he did for Dionysus when the toddler grew upset for seemingly no reason and Noctis needed a night of sleep. Regis clung, and he cried. Everyone in the room cried. Even Cor, who had retreated to the window to glare out of it had tears trickling silently down his cheeks from the weight of emotion in the room. The weight of memory.

“I’m here,” Regis whispered over and over, “I’m here, Noctis. You are here. You are not to blame. I’m here. It will- it will be alright. Everything will be alright.”

It was much later that Noctis’s tears finally dried and the magic in the room stopped feeling quite so thick with horror and regret and **relief** at finally being able to admit a secret —a burden— that must have haunted him for three years —more, he had been home for a year, yet he had never aired this secret until now—. Noctis breathed slowly, and for a moment he thought his son was going to fall asleep from exhaustion. Then, “Don’t hate him. Please.”

Regis struggled not to stiffen. Cor was rigid by the window, watching Noctis with burning eyes, and Ignis and Gladiolus shared matching expressions of suppressed fury. Clarus had returned at some point, minus Dionysus, who Regis could feel not far away outside, being held by a soul that glimmered with Kingsglaive magic. Ignis adjusted his glasses with trembling hands, “Noctis?”

“Ardyn,” breathed Noctis into Regis’s clothes, “please don’t hate him.”

“ **Why not**?” Gladiolus growled with bared teeth, “He tormented you, Noct. He **tortured** you.”

Noctis hid his face against Regis’s chest, “Dyn … Dyn wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him. We- he was there. At the end. As the lab burned. He laughed. I think somewhere deep down he was glad to see it gone.” Noctis sighed, too old for his skin as the rest of them struggled to wrap their heads around this claim, “We fought. It was what he wanted. I … I won. Barely. I know- I know he hurt me. I know he hurt a lot of people. I know it was wrong. But in the end … it wasn’t all him. He was sick. He was two thousand years away from home. It’s so **easy** to hate, when you’re that old. When you feel that lost. It’s so easy to hate the world. To hate yourself. To hate everything. But in the end… in the end, I think he just wanted everything to **stop**. The pain. The fear. The grief. He wanted it to stop. So he made it stop. Even if he used me to do it… I’m not mad. Not anymore. I wanted to give him peace. I held him … as the sun rose, and … he deserved that much. To finally have peace.”

“Noct.” Regis breathed, unsure if he was proud or even angrier, unsure how to express that such a man didn’t **deserve** for Noctis to advocate for him, even after the man’s death. No matter if he’d had some role in getting Noctis and Dionysus out of the labs or not. After what he’d done- how could Regis call himself a good father and yet forgive the man’s memory?

Noctis raised his head very slowly, and there was something pleading there, “This isn’t the memories talking. This isn’t … me feeling the Mystic’s guilt right now. This is **me**. This is what **I want**. I … I want a funeral for him. A place in the cemetery. He deserves that much. He deserves to **rest** with the rest of his kin.” Noctis searched Regis’s face, and his expression softened with something that reminded Regis eerily of himself. That expression of understanding and sadness that he could not change his heart —the expression he’d seen in the mirror when thinking about Mors, when his Retinue were so angry still at the memory of Mors and so was Regis, yet Regis also loved his father still—. “Dad,” Noctis whispered, “I was the one wronged. And I forgive him. I forgave him three years ago.”

“He broke you,” Regis whispered.

“He wasn’t the only one,” Noctis shrugged, “and yes, he did. But he also … made sure I lived. He made sure I knew the truth. Of the Prophecy, of what happened all those years ago. Of why I was chosen to bring back the dawn.” Noctis sighed quietly, “Please, Dad.”

Regis slowly ran a hand through his son’s hair and struggled with himself. He knew already that he would never forgive Ardyn Izunia for what he’d done to Noctis. Not even if the man was a victim of a betrayal two thousand years ago. Noctis was his **son** , his precious child, and Ardyn had been, if not solely responsible, clearly a **large part** of the reasons behind Noctis’s jagged, broken edges. Fallen Lucis Caelum or not, family or not, victim or not, Regis would not forgive that.

But it was also not his place to cast judgement on the dead. It was Noctis’s place. Noctis who had suffered and broken and fought and … forgiven.

Regis lowered his head to touch his chin to the top of Noctis’s hair and tried not to think of his son standing there with the royal arms hanging from his skin. Tried not to think of his son reaching forward to accept his fate in the hands of a forgotten king who had likely broken him, had likely **hurt** him before dying and joining the rest of the Lucii. Over Noctis’s head, he exchanged long looks with the rest of those present. With Clarus’s and Gladiolus’s bristling fury, Ignis’s cold-eyed anger, Cor’s burning guilt for not saving Noctis from this. He glanced down finally at the young Prompto, the civilian boy who had not signed up from any of this despite accepting a place in Noctis’s Retinue just two months ago.

The boy met his gaze evenly, and there was a bright-eyed grief there, but no anger. No rage. If anything, the boy looked eerily similar to Noctis in that moment, too old for his skin, too wise for his age. Prompto looked pointedly at Regis, then down at Noctis, then back. His opinion was clear. Noctis’s trauma. Noctis’s choice. It wasn’t about Ardyn Izunia or his crimes, it was about Noctis. About what might even **begin** to heal Regis’s son in heart and soul. There was an acceptance in the air, in Noctis’s magic. A calm underneath the slowly settling age and grief that spoke of true forgiveness. True **kindness**. Like Noctis truly had forgiven Ardyn for his role in all that had happened. And perhaps it was the only way Noctis had known to save his shattering soul out there in the wilds, in the aftermath with a newborn son to care for and new scars to bear. Or perhaps it was genuine. An understanding and sympathy between two souls that had _lived-suffered-died-lived_ for two thousand years, even if one was only in memory and not reality, that Regis couldn’t hope to achieve himself.

**_“For your sacrifice and your kindness, we know you hereafter as the Merciful.”_ **

_“Even if he used me to do it… I’m not mad. Not anymore. I wanted to give him peace. I held him … as the sun rose, and … he deserved that much. To finally have peace.”_

_Merciful indeed,_ Regis thought just a touch bitterly as he nodded and dropped his gaze back to his son, “…I understand, Noctis. We will do what we can.”

“…Thanks, Dad.”

Regis squeezed his arms gently, pouring his love into his magic as Dionysus, once again asleep from exhaustion and tears, was tentatively carried back into the room and tucked into Noctis’s arms, “Anything for you, Noctis. Now please, get some rest. You are safe here. You are safe.” He felt his son sigh softly, and the last turbulent edges of magic slowly relax as Noctis gave into his fatigue and fell asleep in Regis’s arms like he used to as a child. Regis kissed Noctis’s hair and blinked away his tears. He would rage later, he would be violently sick later, he knew he would. But he could resist those urges for a few more hours in exchange for holding his son and grandson like this. He could remain controlled if it meant feeling, **knowing** , that his son was alive.

All those secrets aired, scars shown, wounds on his child’s soul finally bared, and yet Noctis was still alive —still so achingly, breathtakingly kind, to love a child he had not consented to have, to forgive a man who had broken him for the sake of a vendetta two thousand years passed—. Knowing that … everything else could come later. His son was still alive, despite everything he had been through and suffered.

Regis slowly shifted so that he was in a position that was slightly less likely to leave his back and knee screaming in a few hours, and gave Prompto a grateful look when the boy slid off the bed to give him more room with his son. The rest of them whispered and debated for a few moments before everyone but Gladiolus and Clarus slowly filtered out, leaving the three Lucis Caelums to doze together with their Shields keeping watch over them, the father who had tried his hardest and failed to protect his son from his fate, the child who was so dearly loved despite his origins, and the son who had been spared from Prophecy by the kindnesses he had shown another that did not deserve them.


End file.
